


Inside the Evil

by RoleplayFanfics



Series: The Evil Outside [3]
Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: #RuvikDidNothingWrong, 2, AU, Alternative Perspective, F/F, F/M, Forum, Gore, Horror, Horror game, Leslie Withers finally being happy, M/M, Multi, Other, Reimagining the plot, Rewriting the plot, Roleplay, Sebastian not being a mess for once, Smut, Someone fix the idiot detective, Stefano as the pathetic being he is, The Author Regrets Nothing, Video Game, What if Ruvik was alive, alternative universe, evil within, game fanfics, para post, part of a trilogy, role play, the evil within - Freeform, the evil within 2, third part, third story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-10-16 15:00:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 65,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17551862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoleplayFanfics/pseuds/RoleplayFanfics
Summary: The machine in front of him was truly a disgusting perversion of iron, a beast of metal, made completely in a factory, as if without any influence from a human mind. His own machine had never been beautiful, he had no illusions about that but this, this thing, just looked so very wrong and artificial. It had not been made by a man that longed to flee the world and be reunited by the only thing he had loved, it had not been designed to explore and discover unknown territory inside a human mind, it was designed by a corporation to link minds together for a purpose that Ruvik highly doubted was noble or pure.Despite all of the feelings he experienced, he could not shake one simple, clear thought. Why was he here, at all? This machine had been completed, it was working right now, as he could see people connected to it. From the looks on the monitors he could see, the vital signs were normal, no one was seemingly unable to be woken up at a moments notice. Something had to be wrong though, he would not have been taken from his home if everything was going according to plan. So what was it? What was wrong? What, to quote Sebastian, had they ‘fucked up’ this time?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe we are getting a little overambitious now, but let's see how this goes. 
> 
> Continuing on our series after The Evil Intentions, and Without The Evil, this is the third part of the same AU, describing this version of the second game's content. While it works to read as a stand alone story, it's better to at the very least have read Without The Evil first, to understand the full context. 
> 
> Althogether, this series of fanfiction describes a scenario in which the truth of Ruvik is further explored and exposed by Sebastian Castellanos: the fact that Ruvik was never evil. It is followed by re-imagined events and a re-imagined story, about what could have happened, if someone had actually figured out that Ruvik isn't evil. 
> 
> Spoiler warning: It probably goes without saying, but this story spoils the content of The Evil Within 2. 
> 
> Ruvik is written by Teddy, Sebastian is written by Nathan, and then they divide the other characters up a little.

**Sebastian:**

Sebastian Castellanos had probably never, in his life, been able to imagine that living with the ghost of a dead scientist, and a mental patient acting like an overgrown child, would well…. Eh, that thought trail didn’t work; who would imagine such an insane thing from the start? It bordered on absolute lunacy, and no one would believe such an insane idea.

Well, the matter of fact was that the detective had found himself living in the exact situation, insanity be damned, and learnt that it wasn’t as horrible as it could have been, actually, uh, it really wasn’t that bad, at all.    
  
It was-... strange how easily things lined up, in the end. Perhaps Sebastian had always had a type, because it wasn’t about the scientist reminding of Myra, as much as the fact that the man simply knew exactly how to handle Sebastian, something coworkers and friends had not been shy to point out, for the last two and a half years. 

Not even the surprised looks on the faces of people realizing that he was in a relationship with a man were that bad, in honestly, they were just getting a little tiresome, and stupidly repetitive, like the bastards always imagined themselves to be the first one to react in such a predictable fucking way. Sebastian just hadn’t never really been the type to give a flying fuck about what people thought of his private business. He got it, fine, he didn’t look like the man they expected to be dating another man, especially one so much younger than himself. Those who knew him were, of course, even more surprised, but it really wasn’t much more to that. Funny thing was that all those bastards seemed to think it was perfectly fitting and fine to judge it, until they actually talked to Ruvik-looking-like-Leslie. The man knew how to present himself, he was assertive, calm, polite when he had to, and well, in the beginning, Sebastian was probably more bothered by the fact that just everyone seemed to think they were a perfect fit, more than just under their more secret circumstances. It was almost like they were saying that he was so difficult to live with, that a certain type of people was necessary to make his life work out; people even joked that he would have lost his job permanently, being nothing more than a washed up ex cop, hadn’t it been for his new partner, and for him moving on. Ugh. Besides, Ruvik wasn’t as perfect as the shallow image portrayed, he had just gotten into practice of showing a better face to strangers, making an effort to make his new found life as easy as possible for himself and his partner.   
  
The story had to be altered, quite a bit. They often spoke as little as they could about the incident, but the story always went along the lines of finding each other, and comfort in each other, after the tragic mass murder at Beacon Mental Hospital; a tale where they were both survivors of the incident; it really seemed to make sense to people that they would find one another in such a way, after the incident in the official records. Another more amusing note was how they never really talked about it, but it was all too easy for Ruvik to play pretend he had been a nurse, or just any professional, rather than one of the patients, although, he was far too young to be anything near his actual level of understanding of the human brain, thus, nurse was just about enough. Anyway, it was the official story, and it wasn’t like Sebastian gave a damn about whether people knew the truth or not, or what they thought about it.    
  
Happiness was a fickle thing, really, he just decided not to think about it, in the long run. If he started, Sebastian would very soon find that maybe it was hard for a man living under the surveillance of some evil mystery corporation, still being plagued by nightmares of the worst in his life, perhaps didn’t have much left in hope of happiness. Maybe that was just part of life, really, there was a certain innocence to happiness, ignorance to things that would weigh one down, and ignorance to the world itself, perhaps the reason why people always talk about children being blissfully happy and unaware. The newly wed, learning to not anymore be so reckless, detective, years and years ago, was happy, but he was unaware.    
  
Even if happiness seemed to be beyond the detective, comfort wasn’t beyond him. Comfort was something he could hope for, now that his life had gone straight down the line to Hell. Comfort in not being alone, in his living Hell, comfort of being understood, comfort of getting help, of finally, fucking finally for once in his life, admitting that he needed help. There were comfort in small things, small changes, small things getting better. The comfort of Ruvik finally managing to convince the detective’s paranoid mind to be able to sleep without keeping every single light on in the house, to sleep without being afraid of his own shadow. That time, instead of trying to appeal to the the logical part of his mind, the ex scientist had, silly as it sounded, reminded him that he would protect Sebastian, and that nothing could harm him, when Ruvik was near. It appealed to his subconsciousness, to his trauma only recognizing safety in the one mind that had control inside of STEM; it worked. Like that they continued, being a comfort for one another.

Leslie Withers was a comfort, even if different. He was not a replacement for the detective’s lost daughter, he could never be, but he was something different, and someone depending on him. In a sense, he was a bit like adopting a child, and there was joy in seeing the mental patience grow. He sometimes even spoke in full sentences nowadays, and slowly but surely adjusted to act at least like an older child. It was possible to take him out and let him experience things, within moderation, and there was comfort, and at least some joy, in seeing the albino overly, innocently joyful; Leslie seemed happy. Ruvik had explained that the past goal never had been to restore Leslie, given that most mental patients at Beacon were test subjects for something different, and ever since he had become the best result of the testing, his fate would have been only that of a lab rat, if things hadn’t changed. The boy was capable to get better, it just hadn’t been anyone’s priority, back then.    
  
Sebastian found that, to a degree, he didn’t mind being pushed around a little, and having someone decide and care about all those things he never really cared about, as long as there was a boundary that wasn’t crossed. The fact that his lover simply chose for him, instead of trying for force him to show interest and investment in matters he didn’t care about, didn’t force him to pretend to care, was making his life a lot easier. It was… cute, he supposed, when Ruvik went on explaining their food choices and diet choices with needing to keep Sebastian in good health, adding some percentage of more risk he’d be in, in his line of work, if his state of health worsened, even by little. He really thought his drinking problem would be worse, but the ex scientist had been particularly harsh on that one, forcing alcohol out of their household altogether. It was devilishly clever, because he didn’t spend that much time out, and sitting alone at bars and drinking wasn’t exactly the highest on Sebastian’s list of priorities, when he was in much more comfort at home, when there was something else that made him feel better. Alcohol went back to being a social thing, really, because there were still friends that gave a damn about him; Ruvik had long since stopped joining them out at bars. He still had to be careful around alcohol, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.    
  
Well, a coworker and friend had been the reason that Sebastian found himself in a bar, that particular evening that changed things again. Changes they had waited for; both Sebastian and Ruvik knew that there was still a risk out there, as long as Mobius was active, of course they knew that; it was damned obvious. The detective and his coworker had nearly pulled an all nighter with work, the previous evening, something that was starting to negatively affect the man’s ability to remain focused at all at this point. The bar visit was in celebration of solving a case, seeing as his coworker had pulled through better than she ever had in the past, he agreed to celebrate a little bit, a drink with a friend was just fine. Even so, his head was pounding, and the bit of alcohol wasn’t making it any better, not that it came as a surprise. She had gone home, and well, he hadn’t finished his last drink and was tired, exhausted even, meaning that he just let himself sit there and stay for a moment. Had it been two years ago, he imagined he would have been a complete mess, the beard he had let himself grow would be unshapely and wild, and he would have been haunted in broad daylight by his own past and traumas; truth was, it probably would have been the case if he hadn’t had Ruvik. 

He had let himself zone out; lack of sleep could make someone highly unaware of their surroundings. He had since long learnt to identify Mobius agents, when they were in his surrounding, currently two of them at the bar, having a conversation with one another, trying and failing to blend in. Perhaps they didn’t care, they probably knew the fact that he knew, and that he, after these over two years, couldn’t care less.    
  
He had leaned his head back just for a moment dragging out, having been lost in thoughts, but once he leaned forward and opened his eyes again, everything changed; he was greeted with the least likely possible sight. Immediately, his hands clenched into fists, and he felt rage, red, pure rage, overwhelming anger for everything that had ever gone wrong in his life, thanks to them, thanks to that liar and traitor of a woman.   
  
“Kidman?!”   
  
She was sitting, opposite of him in the booth, relaxed back with her arms crossed, looking just the same as always, looking just the same as the junior detective he had known her as. In mere moments, Sebastian was bloody enraged, slightly hindered back by the alcohol, and the feeling of exhaust. Not having been able to blame Ruvik for the Beacon incident, and knowing it was never the man’s fault, there was only one to blame, and while even in his rage, he somehow understood that she wasn’t solely responsible, Kidman seemed like a pretty fucking good target to take his anger out on, right then. It was all the fault of Mobius, and she was one of them. Worse yet, the arrogant bitch had the stomach to just smirk at him, like she was somehow finding joy in his suffering, and oh fuck he wanted to just punch her teeth out, hurt someone responsible for all their suffering, for his suffering, for Leslie’s suffering, for Ruvik’s lifelong suffering. 

“Hello, Sebastian. It’s been a long time.”   
  
No fucking shit, bitch.   
  
The fact that his ex subordinate seemed to think she could speak to him, as if nothing had changed, made his blood boil. Where did one even start? He wanted to scream at her, his mind still vaguely aware that he was in public space and that it was probably a bad idea. However, his past came back and slapped him in the face, all too many things at once, not to mention, the fear of what was to come, the fear that this was that day he and Ruvik had awaited in silence, hoping would never really come. Start easy, fuck, don’t lose it.   
  
“Three years. I’ve been trying to track you down for  **three** years.” Sebastian was more or less hissing out the words. 

It was true, even though him trying to search for her, and trying to find out what became of Joseph’s body, had faded slightly over the past two and a half years with Ruvik, his goals being slightly strangled by the fact that he had something to lose, again. Still, while he may have given up on the idea of being able to single handedly take Mobius down, after far too many arguments with his new partner, he had still wanted to find Kidman. She had been a friend, someone he had trusted. It was different.    
  
“And you thought you’d find me at the bottom of an empty bottle, is that it?” 

Sebastian probably imagined her to sneer worse than she had, if there was concern, it flew right over his head. From what he could tell, she was trying to be professional and remain detached, but who knows, he didn’t know how far her web of lies extended, maybe there wasn’t any emotions to detach from. Still, if Kidman was going to be professional, perhaps she shouldn’t go about judging him. His drinking problem wasn’t back, he wasn’t that much of a mess, and some part of his mind wanted to snap back at her first assumption being that he would be back to being an alcoholic. Even in the slight haze of alcohol and lack of sleep, he still realised that it probably meant she hadn’t been observing him personally, if she lacked that insight. He imagined she’d have very different things to say, if she knew, that was a slight, welcomed, upper hand, in a sea of downsides. Alright, try to figure things out. Well, his mind said that he should, but the words still turned into a fit of aggression.    
  
“And why are you here now, damnit?!” The hissing had nearly gone over to growling.    
  
His life had finally started to turn a little brighter, he didn’t need the change to come now. Part of him wanted to try to force an answer out of what they would have done with Ruvik, or well, Leslie, but that would be betraying his position, and the possibility that they weren’t involved at all, it was too risky. Still, there was a deep pit of worry in his stomach, to top the anger.    
  
Kidman sighed, looking like she had expected him to make a fuss, but was nonetheless annoyed with it, and she spoke very matter of factly. “You did not  **find** me because they did not want you to find me. Calm down, Sebastian.”    
  
That she had the fucking nerve-... Clumsy as it was, she was trying to appeal to him with logic, the way that worked the best, and he hated that she knew him well enough for it.    
  
There were so many things, so many fucking things to address. Ruvik had told him so many things of Mobius, of the man that was likely Kidman’s real boss, and the experiments they had done in Ruvik’s own department, with his own machine. Kidman was one of them, she had been all along, but it had always bothered him that she had seemed confused and unaware about a lot of things inside STEM. Fine, a start.    
  
“You know what was going to happen in that hospital, didn’t you?” Even in hissing fits of anger, he could still derive information. Actually, it was the best way to derive information, because people let their guard down. Besides, the question would likely help with further insight of how much she knew of Ruvik.    
  
She looked bothered, if for a mere second, but managed to keep her faked professional exterior nonetheless. “What happened in Beacon is in the past. You need to forget it.” She even sounded a tad concerned with him, in the way she phrased it. Ugh.

Well damnit, there wasn’t much to derive from that, aside from, maybe, that they did believe that Ruvik was dead. Sebastian sneered in return to her words.   
  
“You sound just like the psychologist the Force shoved down my throat.” Well, that was, as Ruvik had explained, probably a Mobius agent too, but he didn’t need to betray his position just to tell her that. It was far better to focus on the task, he needed to find out what the Hell they wanted and just how much danger he, Ruvik and Leslie were in. Hence, took a deep breath and continued.   
  
“But he didn’t have answers… You do. You are going to tell me about... Mobius.” The name left a foul taste in his mouth, and he had to stop himself from saying anything that made it seem like he knew too much.    
  
To that, Kidman only turned her gaze over towards the bar, towards the agents, and Sebastian then noticed that they had, probably long since, turned and was observing them, obviously awaiting a signal because they got up when Kidman looked over at them. She nodded, and then turned her attention back to her ex superior, reaching down below the table and bringing up a piece of slightly burnt paper, lightly throwing it over to fall to Sebastian’s side of the table. “I am here because of this.”    
  
Of course, Sebastian grabbed the paper and turned it.    
  
It took his hazed mind a moment extra to make out what he saw, but then, the world instantly froze. Right back at him, gazed the eyes of the two people he had probably cherished the most in his entire life, smiling lovingly, happily, together with his happy younger self. The photo was of himself, his wife and his daughter. The photo should have been burnt down with the rest of the house, it was framed in their living room, and there was another unframed copy pinned up to Lily’s wall, along with her drawings; both the copies should have burnt down with the house. Not to mention, the paper was obviously slightly burnt, meaning that it had experienced fire.   
  
If he thought he had been slapped by his past and traumas, a little earlier in the conversation, it was nothing compared to the heavy rocks that came raining down at him, right then, stifling his breath, and in mere moments, made him lose control. There was a deep rooted fear in him, a fear of their involvement in the parts of his life which he had tried the most to settle with, and finally had somewhat settled with, the things he, while blaming himself for not protecting his daughter, or listening to his wife, had come to terms with.    
  
In an instant, he drew his gun, got up, and pointed it straight at the traitorous woman. He was shouting then, not caring the slightest who saw and who reacted. Besides, the bar had emptied out, and it wouldn’t surprise him if the bartender was on their side, as their snakes seemed to be everywhere. “Where did you get this?!”   
  
“Lily’s still alive.”   
  
What.    
  
No, no no no no. She was only alive in his wildest imagination, and most irrational wishes. He had accepted that she was gone. Only Myra had clung to the idea of some evil organisation stealing her away, of her still being alive.    
  
He was stumbling back, but barely noticed, and he lost his focus and aim at his target.    
  
“Lily is dead! I read the police report!” His vision was blurring out. It was hard to focus. His heart was hammering in a pace that made it feel like it would burst out of his chest, his pulse had gone entirely haywire. The words probably didn’t even make sense, but his mind was defending itself, right then. He was panicking.    
  


“I was at her funeral!” Tears threatened to fall, in the corners of his eyes, but weren’t quite enough to start pouring down. He was shaking.    
  
Kidman responded by immediately getting up, challenging his authority with showing no fear towards the gun that was clumsily pointed out her. “We can rewrite history if we want to,” she started, obviously trying to talk sense into him. She took a step forward, “staging a death is child’s play.”    
  
She kept walking, and in response, he aimed higher, properly at her face once more, finding his willpower quivering as much as his hand was.    
  
“Why would I come out of the shadows just to lie to you? Lily is alive, and she is with us, but she is in danger. We need you to help save her.” The tone of Kidman’s voice had softened, she was trying, truly, to reason with him.    
  
He barely heard her through the ringing in his ears. It was far too much to take in all at once. She was alive, she was with Mobius?! A chill ran down his spine, knowing well what Mobius did to people and their lives.    
  
“Save… her? What have you done to her?!” Threatening her with a gun was all he had, even if it didn’t seem to make the slightest bit of difference.    
  
That was when one of the agents grabbed his shoulder, and he turned back to look at the man. No fucking way he was going to just give in to them, give in to people who thought they could do whatever they wanted, and trample right over people and their lives. Lily was the drop.    
  
“Get your hands off me.” No reaction. Fine then.   
  
He grabbed the man and in a rather swift movement used the agent’s own weight to throw him over at the pool table, right beside them, where they had ended up standing, after the movements about in the place. In the same movement, or rather the way back from it, he hit the other agent in the face with the gun, and before the man could recover, had it pointed right at his forehead. If he could just get rid of the agents, Kidman alone would not be a challenge. He was not going to lose-...   
  
There was a stinging sensation suddenly striking his neck, and he only managed to turn to see the big tool in Kidman’s hand, that had probably injected something into him. He heard her speak, but it took a moment too long to understand the words, and within moments, he passed out.    
  
“I was hoping you’d come willingly, Sebastian, but we don’t have time for this bullshit. We need you, Lily needs you.”   
  
\--

Perhaps it was for the better that his sleep was dreamless, who knows what sort of things would have plagued his mind, otherwise. His hearing came back first, as he stirred and moved about, while still in a daze, rather easily figuring out that he was physically restrained, he didn’t need his vision to clear to feel that he couldn’t move much at all.   
  
“Sebastian? You’re awake, good.”    
  
He did recognize Kidman’s voice, and while it still angered him, he was far too dazed out to react to it properly, or to act on said anger. A few more moments passed before he remembered what she had done; what exactly had they given him to numb out more than just his mind into sleep; he felt drugged. He wanted to be angry, he wanted to shout, but couldn’t find the will or energy to, even if he was coming to, properly. Great. He was met with Kidman’s face, and still couldn’t muster the anger he knew, logically, that he should feel.    
  
“Yeah… great… uh, where are we?” He had a feeling he already knew the answer to that question, though.    
  
For a moment, it seemed like Kidman ignored his question, as she gave off a weak smile, and turned to start walking, but then she did actually speak. “You’re in one of our facilities.”    
  
It was then Sebastian realised that he was stuck in, and bound to, a wheelchair, and that someone was pulling him along with her, in a white, somewhat dim, corridor. Yeah, great, so now he was stuck with them. He had almost expected that. He seemed to be able to think surprisingly clear, even if his emotions were dulled, well, perhaps it was just because his emotions were numbed out.

“So this is the almighty Mobius, huh?” He felt calm enough to give at least one retort. He wasn’t happy, that was clear, but it seemed he had no choice but to remain somewhat calm. He needed to keep level headed, if he in any way was to get out of the situation.    
  
“Be careful what you say; you don’t know how powerful they are.” Was that concern? Couldn’t be. Still, Kidman sounded like she genuinely wanted to warn him of that.    
  
His sarcasm hadn’t been drugged away from him, that was for sure. He rolled his eyes and sighed, “yeah,... so powerful that they have to kidnap a washed up, traumatized, detective to help them…” The idea of being forced to help them sounded awful, but it was better than them wanting to get rid of him altogether, once more deciding that he’d be collateral for their plots. Even more so if it was about… Lily. Fuck.    
  
“At least your terrible sense of humor is still intact,” Kidman retorted, calmly.    
  
He barely heard her, he had remembered his focus.    
  
“Enough of this bullshit; where is Lily?” He couldn’t even manage to sound angry, not properly, or even as threatening or demanding as he would have wanted. Still, it was worth a try, dealing with Kidman was better than dealing with complete strangers of this organisation.    
  
“Patience. All your answers are right here.”   
  
A set of metal doors opened up before them.    


 

  
  
**Ruvik:**

Ruvik had never liked the sound of doorbells. They were loud and annoying, and would often come when one was expecting it the least. Not to mention that one was expected to drop everything and hurry to the door the same second, if not before, the doorbell had been rung, then to greet and be pleasant towards the fool that had come bothered in the first place. It was, overall, not a very pleasant time for someone that prefered to be alone. With that considered, for the doorbell to ring when Sebastian was gone, and had been for the night, the albino was not the most comfortable answering the door alone. While he was aware that it may be nothing, another part of him worried that the detective might have gotten himself hurt at work, leading to him electing to open the door despite not wanting to. 

He immediately regretted opening it, as three men in black suits waited for him outside. He froze in place, before attempting to close the door on them. In hindsight, it might have been better to do no resistance at all, simply allowing them to take him away, yet, he had far too much he wanted to live for to just surrender without even attempting to in any way fight for it. Back at the point of his previous death, it had been clear that he had no choice, and thus he had surrendered to his apparent fate of becoming the STEM core, hoping for a chance where he might get away later. This, his life in this tiny apartment, was actually worth more to the man that his whole previous, and seemingly only, life. 

Despite all odds, he managed to shut the door before it was brutally forced open and the men came inside. He had no chance against people trained for these types of things, leading to him being very easily and roughly grabbed. His first instinct was to act like Leslie would have, if there was still any doubt in Mobius’s mind that he was still alive, he would fuel that until it would no longer be possible. The albino’s eyes looked around at the men, filled with confusion and fear, the muscles of the body being tense, but he did not make any resistance as he was pulled out of the door and down the stairs.

He had been forced into a car with dark windows, where a bag had been placed over his head to keep him unaware of where they were going. The bag would prove to be his greatest challenge in remaining ‘Leslie,’ as it triggered many painful and panic-inducing  memories about tied to a surgery table and slowly, but surely, being dissected. It wasn’t going to happen again, things like that simply did not really happen, especially not twice, yet, it made his body tremble and sweat with fear. The people in the car clearly did not see him as a threat, as his hands were kept free of bondage, something he was immensely relieved about, seeing as the bag itself was more than he could really handle.    


After what felt like a very long time, the car stopped and he was moved out of it. The bag was removed, causing him to gasp for air, like he had been submerged in water. He was somewhat sure that there were traces of tears in his eyes, traces that he wiped away with the palm of his hand. A push from one of the men behind him told him to start moving and so he did, following the back of another man in a suit. As he waddled after the person, nervously holding his hands to his chest, he looked around. From what he could tell, he was now in a newly built building with every little inch cleaned until it was shining. He could see his own reflection in almost every surface as he walked down a white corridor. It was at this point that he realized that he was completely barefoot, something that caused his sweaty feet to make even more noise against the floor than the rubber undersides of the suited people’s shoes. 

They reached a set of doors which opened to reveal what he had feared; the design of the machine left no doubt, he was looking at another STEM. The machine in front of him was truly a disgusting perversion of iron, a beast of metal, made completely in a factory, as if without any influence from human hand. His own machine had never been beautiful, he had no illusions about that but this, this thing, however, just looked so very wrong and artificial. It had not been made by a man that longed to flee the world and be reunited by the only thing he had loved, it had not been designed to explore and discover unknown territory inside a human mind, it was designed by a corporation to link minds together for a purpose that Ruvik highly doubted was noble or pure. In summary, it was nothing like what he had built and everything he had not wanted STEM to be, it was something that caused such a strong dislike and anger inside of him that he lacked words to truly express the emotions he was experiencing. It felt similar to being stuck in a room with a predator, he felt the same barely contained panic and feeling of entrapment as when Marcelo Jimenez’ goons had captured him at his lab; the urge to run was so strong that he had to battle it tooth and nail to remain standing in one place. 

Despite all of the feelings he experienced, he could not shake one simple, clear thought. Why was he here, at all? This machine had been completed, it was working right now, as he could see people connected to it. From the looks on the monitors he could see, the vital signs were normal, no one was seemingly unable to be woken up at a moments notice. Something had to be wrong though, he would not have been taken from his home if everything was going according to plan. So what was it? What was wrong? What, to quote Sebastian, had they ‘fucked up’ this time? 

The men around him moved away from him, leaving him standing alone before the beast, and before he could decide what he wanted to do, the sound of footsteps caught his attention. He turned his head towards the sound, spotting the man he only knew as ‘The Administrator,’ coming towards him, with a smug, satisfied look on his face. The two of them had never gotten along at all, the other man had a way about him that had made Ruvik feel distaste towards him from the moment he had seen him. It was clear from the few conversations that they had that the man did not think of anyone as a person, but as resources. He found the burned man less than a human, and couldn't care less what happened to him. The Administrator cared about very few things, whereas one was money and another profit, Ruvik had not cared to follow his orders or deadlines, instead working on his machine as was the most effective way to complete it. Most of the time, Jimenez had been the one to come crawling with ‘orders’ from the man, causing Ruvik to send him crawling back with reports of how the orders were being ignored. 

“Are you not proud? This is the full realization of what your creation was meant for.” The man began, sweeping out with his hand, like a schoolboy who tormented his bullying victim by stating the things that he knew would bother the victim the most first. Ruvik could almost taste the smugness in the air. “Jimenez was an idiot, there were many easier ways to go around your act of rebellion than to place your brain as the core. It did not take long to break.” Ruvik highly doubted that it has been as easy as the man made it sound, he had made sure that it would not be that easy. 

The man had gotten rather close now, not more than three meters away, but a lot closer than Ruvik ever wanted him to be. He considered responding, but instead opted to stay silent, moving his eyes back to the machine, besides, he didn’t trust his voice to be all that stable, right then. The man’s speaking of cores made him turn his focus towards the center, STEM was designed to have a person as it’s core, yet the container was far too small to hold a fully grown human. There was a label on it, one that read ‘Lily Castellanos.’ 

Impossible. That was the same surname as Sebastian’s. The man’s wife was named Myra and the dead daughter was named… uh, what had she actually been named? They never spoke about her and when it had been mentioned, Seb has only referred to her as ‘my daughter.’ It couldn’t be the same person, not only because she was dead, but because the whole scheme itself was borderline ridiculous; that Seb’s daughter would be kidnapped and made into a candidate for a core way before the man himself had been one of four people to come out of STEM alive. Was it all a coincidence? It was much more likely for the name to be a match with Sebastian’s by coincidence than anything else. 

As he was in the middle of being lost in his own thoughts, a set of doors opened to the left of him, upon turning his head, he spotted the woman (whose name he couldn’t recall) that had joined Sebastian and his team when they had entered his own head, followed by his partner, who had been locked into a wheelchair. He immediately approached them, ignoring the person next to the wheelchair as he walked up to his partner, for a moment, all of his worries about the machine itself were forgotten.

“Sebastian.” Ruvik could easily tell that something was wrong, it was a tad ridiculous to place the man in a wheelchair to restrain but still be able to move him about, but it would be explainable if they had used some manner of drug to keep him sedated. Without warning, he grabbed his partner’s face and pulled the eye open, allowing him to see the pupil more clearly. There must have been more than one drug mixed into the injection that they gave the detective, judging from what he could see. “What drugs did you use on him?” He ignored Sebastian’s response as he looked to the woman. “You are aware of the dangers of mixing drugs with alcohol, luckily for you, he has a very low alcohol level in his blood as he seldom drinks, yet it’s vastly irresponsible at best.” he let go of the eyelids. “You are clearly responsive, good. What about your body? Can you move without trouble? Where were you injected with the drugs?” 

Ruvik heard the smug voice of The Administrator, coming from somewhere behind him; “Now this is more than I thought you capable of, you should calm yourself, Ruvik, we have business to attend to,” but he did not care to look around for him, instead having spotted blood on his partner’s collar, causing him to move around to inspect. 

“I do not care about advice from a man who believes the human brain to be pink.” He didn’t need to pull anything away to see the big mark from the injection on his lover’s neck. He felt strange urges of violence bloom in his chest, whoever had done this was not a certified nurse and should clearly not be trusted with injections. The neck was beyond dangerous to inject something in, if Sebastian had been struggling in any way and their aim had been ever a few millimeters wrong, they could have paralyzed the man or done irreparable damage to his nerves or brain. The hole itself was somewhat even and clean, little blood seemed to have been spilled which meant that it was seemingly alright. Ruvik began to touch around it, checking very carefully to make sure that things were still right inside of Sebastian’s neck, promptly ignoring everyone around them as he did his checkup. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d do anything for Lily, he knew it already, he didn’t have a choice, it wasn’t about him, or his life, or his past with STEM, not anymore. It wasn’t just that, though, it was for Ruvik, and for Leslie, as well, if they did what they were asked to, perhaps, just perhaps they would get out of all of it alive. He had to fight, for all of the people he cared about, no matter what he felt, no matter if he was ready to jump into that machine again or not. 
> 
> What he didn’t expect, at all, was hearing Ruvik speaking up about joining him in STEM. What-... what the Hell?! The level of dangerous that was, was indescribable, really. What the Hell would happen to Leslie? They had no idea what they would find in there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it seemed that Nathan ended up assigned to write Kidman as well as Sebastian. Teddy still writes Ruvik and Leslie.

**Sebastian:**

Maybe whatever they had put in him to sedate him had been for the better, really, because the very last thing Sebastian Castellanos could handle right there and then, was the sight of the giant monster of metal ahead of him, in the big room they entered. He’d recognize STEM just anywhere, no other thing looked like like such a mistake of a sci-fi tale, like some terrifying mechanic monster having people captured to it, something he himself knew all too well the feeling of. He might have panicked again, just by the mere thought of STEM being involved, in whatever had to do with Lily, had it not been for the fact that they had put him under like that. His daughter had always come before other things, and the idea of the helplessness of her suffering, of what could have happened to her, while he could do nothing was making feel sick. At least, in his own misery, the past years, he had been able to do something. If Lily was alive, then his mind didn’t even want to begin comprehending how she might have suffered over the years. He was about to try to force another answer out of Kidman, but then, he spotted someone approaching him.    
  
It was impossible to tell if he should be happy or worried about the fact that Ruvik was there with him. A big part of him felt a strong relief, immediately, as the man bent down over him, worry clearly evident in his eyes, seeing that his face, in the form of Leslie Withers, allowed for all the facial expressions that the burned previous body hadn’t. Instead of trying to figure out whether or not he’d rather have his partner by his side, or keep him safe and out of it, he tried to focus on what Ruvik was telling him.    
  
“Ugh, hey, Ruvik, I’m fine,” he tried to get the other’s attention, grunting out a reassurement. It was a little hard to tell if he was fine, of course, but while he felt hazy and restrained, he didn’t feel like his body wasn’t anything but normal. Having Ruvik poke about and touch him, the way he did, was just such a natural quirk to the man that Sebastian couldn’t be any less bothered. Rather than continuing to reassure his lover, that was barking interrogatively at Kidman and the others, he noticed something very interesting, which also was for the better, he’d rather not dwell on the risks of being injected with whatever it had been, that were obviously upsetting his partner.   
  
Juli Kidman looked like she had seen a ghost, quite literally. In all of the time Sebastian Castellanos had known her, lies or no lies, she had never looked so taken aback and surprised, as when she watched the body of Leslie Withers borderline kneel in front of the restrained detective, fussing about over his well being and acting like a worried lover. His earlier suspicion of her not knowing just everything, seemed to align up even better then, not that he could tell just yet what surprised her so. Still, it was worth something. Every little detail meant something. The woman seemed far too taken aback to even answer Ruvik, at all.    
  
Sebastian was about to ask Ruvik what happened to him, and when he got there, but the same voice which had reprimanded the albino for his emotional behaviour rung out again, from somewhere across the room. “The Beacon Mental Hospital Incident was… an unfortunate setback.”

Sebastian assumed that the man was addressing either him, or possibly the both of them, probably both of them.    
  
“But we used the knowledge gained, to build a new and vastly improved STEM system.”   
  
The detective couldn’t exactly say that he was up for this bullshit right then. It seemed like he wouldn’t get any time to talk to his partner, at least not there and then. He sighed and rolled his eyes, not needing to hear the evil mega-corporation speech, he didn’t give shit about their supposed righteous cause and improvement of the monster that was the damned machine. Instead, Sebastian went straight to the point, “what does this have to do with my daughter?” Even then, his voice wasn’t outright aggressive, even if he was audibly annoyed. 

Worse yet, the man that was hiding somewhere in the dimly lit, giant, room, seemed to ignore his words altogether. Great, it was one of those assholes who absolutely had to go on about their achievements and plans, no matter whether or not the information was relevant. Fucking great.    
  
“Imagine it: millions of minds connected together,” the voice answered, and finally, Sebastian heard footsteps, able to locate the man, slowly walking out of the shadows. 

No thank you, he’d rather not imagine more minds connected together, and bit back a retort of how that would be very easy to state for a man that had never once been connected to said torture device. Maybe this was what Kidman had meant with patience, as upon glancing back at her, she seemed to just be waiting things out as well, hence he sighed, and listened.    
  
“Happiness for one is happiness for all. This machine, this miracle, will allow our species to achieve greatness. We needed to start with a mind that was pure and clean enough to support thousands of personalities: the mind of an innocent child.”    
  
In hindsight, Sebastian probably could have broken down there and then, at the pure notion of realization. His mind, influenced by the drugs, forced him to work through it, dread causing shivers down his spine, as his mind connected the pieces, slowly but surely. There really wasn’t any other way to think about it, no way around it, despite him desperately wishing it. Panic shone through his eyes, and he drew a few sharp breaths; it felt like he wanted to scream, or cry, but it wasn’t an option for his drugged mind. The idea of his daughter, his beloved own daughter, caught up in that monstrosity, made his stomach want to turn inside out, made him want to vomit, even if he kept it together. Worse yet, seeing Ruvik was his only reference to a STEM core, although, he did realise, and hope, that the notion of needing to save her meant that she was in a state which could be saved. Instead, his mind and body fought the drug in his blood, and for a few moments, made an effort to test its boundaries in trying to tear out of the bounds. He could feel fury and anger burn up again, but it felt like the sparks were only momentarily, and robbed of their oxygen before they could grow into a real flame.    
  
“You connected Lily to that… machine?!” Sebastian was shouting, again, disbelief evident in his voice. He nearly called the machine a monster. His voice also hinted on a desperation that no one had probably seen in him since, well, when he lost Lily. Helplessness to the situation she had been dragged into, helplessness to be unable to save his only child, a feeling he usually only had seldom nightmares about, all these years later. 

The man, and well, supposed boss of Mobius, didn’t seem alerted in the least at his behaviour, he simply continued speaking.    
  
“Your daughter is quite special. The most stable Core Candidate we’ve ever tested. Thanks to her, the new STEM has been a smashing success,...” the man had now emerged completely out of the shadows, and was standing just a few steps ahead of the two kidnapped individuals; he took a deep breath and continued his sentence, “until recently.”    
  
With the man so close, Sebastian couldn’t help but to try to fight his bounds, desperate. He wanted to hurt the man so bad, punch those teeth out of the shark-like grin. Still, there was little he could do.    
  
The unpleasant man gazed over at Kidman, and it took her a moment of being shaken, still staring down in disbelief at the young albino, before she realized that things had turned silent, and she was probably supposed to speak.   
  
“Ah-.. A little over a week ago, Lily vanished. Just stopped sending signals…,” she started. Sebastian gazed up at his former junior detective, and the more he listened to her and this boss of Mobius, the more he noticed just how much they seemed to have planned around getting Sebastian and Ruvik back there. The whole routine, speech and everything about it seemed rehearsed almost.    
  
Kidman kept her eyes on the ground, while speaking, her eyes betraying actual worry. “Then the STEM environment began to collapse. We thought it was just a technical glitch, an easy fix, so we sent a team of Mobius agents inside…. But then we lost contact with them, and STEM went dark.”    
  
Well great, all the technical bullshit he didn’t understand shit of. What it probably meant, however, if one wanted to use simple deduction, if they needed someone like him, they probably could not simply wake people up again. He didn’t have a chance to think it over, and he was about to ask Ruvik if it was possible to do something with the machine to wake them all up, but the Administrator spoke again, and began walking towards Sebastian and Ruvik.    
  
“Think about this, Mr. Castellanos, I am providing you with an opportunity, not only to see your daughter again, but to save her. Something you thought you failed to do before. You can save her, or let her die; it’s your choice.”    
  
Just like that, the man passed by the two of them, and walked out of there. Actually, Sebastian didn’t mind the idea of not having the unpleasant man there, seeing that it was only the drugs injected in him that were currently keeping him stable enough to not break down altogether. It was just… so much to take in. Kidman didn’t walk away, however, which was slightly annoying, but he didn’t expect they would let either him or Ruvik out of their sight, anyway.    
  
Sebastian turned to look at his partner, finally, and while he probably felt like he should ask if Ruvik was alright, the only thing he could bring himself to ask was: “can she be taken out of that thing without being hurt?” His eyes were pleading, but it was clear by the tone of his voice that he wasn’t the slightest bit hopeful.    
  
He could hear Kidman try to speak to him, from behind him, starting something about how they would already have done it if, they could, but the detective only responded with a sharp ‘shut up,’ awaiting a response from Ruvik, instead. The corners of his eyes were wet, but still not nearly enough to cry, it just… was a different sight from how he had been the past years, altogether, even inside and after the Beacon Incident. Sebastian was an angry and damaged person, he was rarely showing actual sadness and desperation.

 

  
  
**Ruvik:**

Ruvik had never been a good listener. That was not a statement, it was a fact. As a child, as a teenager, as a grown up, he never enjoyed listening to anyone, especially not people who believed themselves to be better than him, or who went on about foolish opinions that made little sense to a man of logic. His father was on the list of people he especially didn’t enjoy listening to, as was Marcelo, and so was the man speaking in front of them right now. 

The scientist had walked around Sebastian to inspect his neck from a different angle. He had half a mind to respond to the man’s monologue but his partner was more important than disproving the statement of a man that didn’t care about science unless there was money to be made from it. 

As he moved back a tad from Sebastian’s wheelchair, having decided that he was well enough to at least not warrant direct worry, the man barked back towards The Administrator, proving that he was well aware of the situation and confirming beyond the shadow of a doubt that Lily Casteallos was his child. Ruvik wasn’t sure how to react to these news, he felt a cold, chilling feeling pass over his back, his heart giving away a despared throb as the facts became undeniable. 

He was so lost in thoughts that wouldn’t quite take shape, so many thoughts dancing in so many directions that he found himself unable to fully follow any of them, as the man in the shadows made himself known by looks and not only by voice. Finally, The Administrator said something so immensely foolish that it made his mind able to focus. He did notice that the man must have walked around and hid himself so that he could give this speech and then show his face, but all the more, his focus was on the idea of millions of people’s minds connected together. First and most damning of all, the idea didn’t work. For minds to be connected and to share information, they needed to be, simply, connected. In theory, two minds could be linked but that assumed that those two minds would be able to perfectly synch up with one another. That there would be no clashing thoughts or emotions that the mind would be unable to recognize as its own. He himself and Leslie were proof that such a thing wasn’t even possible when one of the individuals was hardly aware of their own existence. The mind could very well function with more than one personality, as was evident with any person with dual personalities, but these could not both be active at the same time, instead the mind would only allow one person to be in charge at the time,   
like with him and Leslie. The two of them couldn’t be aware at the same time, not fully, and they had been, scientifically, perfectly synched. 

The man continued, giving the scientist further information that his former employer did not understand the thing he had in his hands, at all. He was about to answer, but instead, Sebastian yelled out towards the face of Mobius, causing him to move his attention towards his partner. The outburst had caught both Ruvik’s and the woman’s attention, as they both silently glanced towards him, unsure of how to in any way comfort him. The man continued on, to the scientist, it felt like the man was reveling in speaking to the man in the wheelchair, to see him this broken. Ruvik felt more than certified to call the man a sadist at this point.

It was painful to see Sebastian’s reaction to the things that the man said, to simply watch as his partner experienced such strong hatred that he was threatening to hurt himself on the restrains if he didn’t calm down. Yet he knew that touching him would not make the man feel any calmer, all he could do was to watch.

“Ah-.. A little over a week ago, Lily vanished. Just stopped sending signals…,” The woman began. “Then the STEM environment began to collapse. We thought it was just a technical glitch, an easy fix, so we sent a team of Mobius agents inside…. But then we lost contact with them, and STEM went dark.” 

What kind of fools were running this whole thing? This was supposed to be Mobius, the intelligent, hidden network of disproportionate power, and they believed their STEM core disappearing to be a technical glitch? In theory, it shouldn’t even be possible for the core to disappear, unless she was a completely aware mind of her own. That meant that she was able to move around STEM unhindered, which lead to the only logical conclusion that she was unaware of her role as the core. He didn’t have time to fully flesh out ways to keep the core as a core without her being aware of her role, as new realizations started to move those theories out of the way: STEM was going dark. They were able to look inside and observe STEM? In what manner were they doing such a thing? It was a world created by a mind, to spy on it was, it should be impossible. What had they done to the girl’s head for such a feat to be possible, at all? 

The Administrator moved towards them, snapping Ruvik out of his thoughts and almost, almost making him step back. One thing became overwhelmingly clear to him in the instant he heard what the man wanted of Sebastian, what he wanted of them; to find and save Lily, to find and restore the core. Sebastian had to know that this wasn’t about him getting his daughter back and out, this was about them getting their resource, even if they succeed, the man would not leave with his daughter. 

Sebastian was the one that caught his attention this time, by giving him a look that made him feel beyond heartbroken. The woman tried to intervene but the man told her to be quiet, giving him enough room to answer his question. “...Yes. It depends slightly on what manner of hurt you are speaking of, but physically, if she has been treated the way she should, she can be removed without any harm to the body. I believe you see the pressurized tank? She is in there, her whole body. STEM was never designed with the intent that one would have to remove their brain to be able to be the core.” He saw something in the other’s eyes that he might have misinterpreted but he quickly added, “yet you cannot simply open it. Her mind is separated from her body, but unaware of this, if you tried to open the chamber or pull her out of there, you would with 98% certainty make her completely braindead for the rest of her life. The last percent represents her waking up at a very old age, unaware of who she is or was.” 

He hesitated, but then slowly seated himself upon Sebastian’s lap, carefully placing a hand on his neck to lightly stroke over it with his thumb. “The only way to make sure she can leave okay is to enter STEM and bring her to an extraction point, that is most likely what they are asking you to do. For this to be possible, she has to know that she is inside a simulation, but that should be dealt with at the time of her finding.” He moved his other hand up, touching the other’s face and looked him in the eyes, knowing fully well what he would find there. 

“...No, I won’t try to talk you out of it. You will do this no matter what, I know that very well.” He imagined the feeling of Laura being trapped in a similar way, of course he wouldn’t be able to control his wish to save her. There were a lot of faults with this, more than anything was the knowledge that they wouldn’t exactly be allowed to walk out of Mobius when everything was done. Upon saving the girl, they would likely be killed or locked away to be kept in worst case scenarios where she needed saving again. It was not pleasant, there really was no way they would come out on top. 

He had spent so very, very long trying to get away from STEM, trying to be free of its nightmares. If he entered it again, he might never leave, or they might simply disconnect him, and let his mind remain trapped in this STEM. If he entered, Leslie might come along and this time get killed. Yet, despite all this, he would not let Sebastian go there alone. “I am coming with you. You are going, no matter what I say or do to convince you otherwise. If I am left out here alone, I might be dead before you even manage to open your eyes in there. Yet inside, I can, at the very least help you. I… am uncertain of the extent of my powers in a completely different mind, with a completely different core, but I know STEM better than anyone.” He did not mention the possibility of him being completely powerless inside the machine. Logically, his mind knew that it was a simulation, it had bended things to its will in STEM so many times, it was much more likely that he would be able to bend reality in there as he had in his own mind, just maybe not to that extent. 

He realized that Sebastian was about to object and so, he placed a hand on his lips, shaking his head, as his lips formed a surprisingly loving smile, one he himself would deny being able to make at all. “I am coming with you. My word is final. You cannot in any way change my mind, Seb.” 

  
  


 

**Sebastian:**   
Sebastian probably had, even before he asked, known the answer to the question. It was hard to tell why he even asked, from the start, aside from that one small possibility, the slightest chance, that Ruvik could do something which Mobius could not. He just needed to hear it, he needed to have his fears confirmed.    
  
The detective didn’t speak as his lover explained the circumstances, there weren’t any words left. He was drawing shaky breaths through somewhat parted lips, and upon hearing that there was no other way, tears began falling, silently, down his face. It had been surprisingly clear what this all was, and that this was in no way about reuniting with his daughter. He did get it. He did fucking get it. The likelihood of them even getting out of this alive was pretty damn low, although, it would make a lot more sense to let them live, in case Mobius fucked up yet another time, and seeing they already knew the truth, and hadn’t been a problem, he supposed he couldn’t see why the organisation wouldn’t let them walk out of there, if they did what they were asked to. If they didn’t though, there were many more things that would be messed up.    
  
He’d do anything for Lily, he knew it already, he didn’t have a choice, it wasn’t about him, or his life, or his past with STEM, not anymore. It wasn’t just that, though, it was for Ruvik, and for Leslie, as well, if they did what they were asked to, perhaps, just perhaps they would get out of all of it alive. He had to fight, for all of the people he cared about, no matter what he felt, no matter if he was ready to jump into that machine again or not.    
  
What he didn’t expect, at all, was hearing Ruvik speaking up about joining him in STEM. What-... what the Hell?! The level of dangerous that was, was indescribable, really. What the Hell would happen to Leslie? They had no idea what they would find in there. Besides, Sebastian had almost expected the scientist to remain on the outside, maybe even be of insight, seeing the machine was his own construction…. Maybe he had just been naive. It wasn’t anymore Ruvik’s machine, the man might as well be completely correct in being of a lot better assistance inside of STEM, with him. Besides, in a sense, he supposed that Ruvik and Leslie were already hostages to make him do what Mobius wanted, already as it was, and he very much preferred being able to communicate with them, than being locked away from them… Fuck.    
  
Ruvik was right. There was nothing he could say, even if the look in Sebastian’s eyes showed that he was mighty displeased with the decision of letting his lover, and possibly Leslie as well, enter that damned monster of a machine.    
  
While he would do just anything for Lily, and would likely have agreed in a heartbeat, even if he had been all alone, the fact that he couldn’t afford disobeying the organisation put another level into all of it. 

Slowly, he nodded at his lover, leaning into the hand a little, for a moment, while taking a deep breath, before he turned his gaze up to Kidman. The woman looked to be somewhere in between uncomfortable in their presence, and in absolute denial and disbelief. She really didn’t know much, then? When he met her gaze, she automatically looked away, almost as if to prove that she hadn’t been staring at them, it was starting to get a little ridiculous. Still, he couldn’t care less what she thought right there and then. “You want her saved, right? You’ll let him help?”    
  
She still looked taken aback, properly, even at the words. “…. He has a history with STEM,... Sebastian, I don’t know…” honestly, she sounded a little helpless. She was evidently bothered and struggling with something about Ruvik, though, Sebastian really couldn’t care less, right then. “I will ask them,” she finally said, walking away, almost in a hurry, leaving the two of them alone, well, not entirely, there were still guards.    
  
Sebastian looked back at his partner and sighed, “what about Leslie?” He sounded almost calm, then, as if he had resigned to his fate. “I don’t need either of you to get hurt, but…. Fine, yeah, I want you to come with me.” Of course he wouldn’t want to go alone, not when he had the chance not to. He leaned forward a little, able to at least touch his forehead to his lover’s cheek, keeping his eyes closed for a few moments, trying to calm down, actually. This was happening. There were nowhere to move except forward.    
  
Only a little later, Kidman returned to announce that yes, they would permit the both of them to enter STEM, although, she seemed very uncomfortable with the idea.    
  


 

**  
** **Ruvik:**

The world had such a strange idea when it came to men showing emotions, especially emotions like sadness, that would make the person in question show themselves as weak. Ruvik had never understood this idea, as he had spent most of his time focusing on the insides of a human, not the social aspects. When he was outside, one of the few things he had notice that different from his perception of what humans were like was this difference in men and women’s tears; that one was accepted, but all the more expected, while men simply shouldn’t do such a thing as crying. He had seen Sebastian cry a few times, as had Sebastian seen him and Leslie cry. In Ruvik’s case, he disliked it because of his unfamiliarity to showing emotions whatsoever, but Sebastian always acted as if it was something borderline shameful when he had cried. 

To see the man who would hardly admit to himself that he had a need to cry, break into tears when it was more than possible for him to be seen in that state, it was… hard to see. He did his best to gently wipe the tears away but found his vocabulary meaningless before the situation at hand. 

Overall, it made things easier for him when Sebastian opted to not speak against him entering alongside the other. It was a waste of time, time that should be focused on much more important tasks. When the detective focused his attention towards the woman, he turned to look as well, remaining seated as she spoke. Her words made his eyes darken, a clear hint of dislike showing on the otherwise soft features of Leslie Wither’s face. 

Ruvik held no ill will towards the woman, the words he had stated back inside his own version of STEM still stood true; it was unfortunate that she had been dragged into that. That was all he felt towards her, circumstances surrounding her being unfortunate. Then she had become a hindrance, one that threatened his own survival. Even that was forgivable, it was even more forgivable when he considered her actions as a form of rebellion towards Mobius. She had surely had to pay a heavy price for that, it was more surprising that she was even allowed to stay. 

_ He has a history with STEM _ . What an absolutely foolish statement that was. He, the machine’s creator, having a history with it? He had never had the urge to roll his eyes more than as he heard her speak in such a way. She would have given her own intellect a lot more credit to just state out loud that she didn’t trust him. 

The scientist looked to his partner as Sebastian asked about Leslie, his eyes having turned to showing hints of worry now. “Yes, I am uncertain. The machine had never been tested or created with the purpose of two minds in one body, it is a little too fantastical to predict. My theory is that only the dominant mind should enter, hopefully, to him, it will be like a deep sleep. If he, in worst case would end up coming along inside STEM, we will have to bring him along as well. He has, after all, survived STEM and made it out more times than anyone else has; let us not forget that fact. I don’t think it will come to him entering alongside us, however, I will try my best to make sure his mind is as far pushed back as I can make it.” 

The former junior detective returned soon after, relying that Ruvik was granted permission to enter STEM as well. He stood up from Sebastian’s lap, giving her access to the man’s bounds so that his partner might be released from his wheelchair. “Before you rise, take caution to move your legs and feet beforehand. The drugs you are affected by are at least in part muscle relaxing, you risk falling over if you just try to stand up.” He told the man. “Tell me if they are too relaxed, I know better where to massage to wake them up than you do.”     
  


 

**Sebastian:**   
“Yeah… well, let’s hope he stays asleep then.”    
  
Ruvik tended to be right about things with his own machine, and hopefully, he was right again. They would have to do this anyway, no matter if it put Leslie at risk. 

Kidman didn’t return alone, but instead with more personnel, and well, they looked more scientist or doctor-like than like any guards; Sebastian assumed that Mobius were eager to get them inside. They didn’t speak with Sebastian or Ruvik, but then again, the detective probably preferred it that way. He couldn’t help but to feel a strong hatred towards everyone in the room, except the albino.    
  
He followed his partner’s instructions and actually moved his body before he got up, and honestly it wasn’t that bad, it felt heavy, but he assumed that wouldn’t be a problem inside of STEM. The other personnel busied themselves with preparing to connect the two individuals to the machine, however, Kidman remained at Sebastian’s side, silently watching them for a while. 

At last, she actually spoke up, carefully glancing over at Sebastian; “what happened with Leslie?” Her voice betrayed actual emotions, or so it sounded like, and the detective immediately noted the fact that they really weren’t telling her anything at all, it seemed. Then again, maybe Mobius thought that Ruvik had faked the personality of the young man altogether. There had been times when his lover had told him some of Leslie’s memories, and it seemed like Kidman had put up quite the effort to protect the mental patient, and well, it was the only thing making sense to why it seemed to get to her, at least to his knowledge.    
  
Sebastian had just gotten up properly and shrugged; “it’s not me you should be asking,” he pointed out, rather casually, in return. He couldn’t care that much about her worries, right then.    
  
Still, it led to Kidman looking over at Ruvik, evidently unsure, until she swallowed and spoke up, “did you kill him?” She seemed to be holding her breath. She was obviously bothered with having to speak to the man altogether, and that Sebastian was making her ask directly.    
  
Sebastian gave his lover a look that probably went along the lines of ‘go ahead,’ or ‘you should tell her.’ Meanwhile, he simply followed the other personnel to his strange tub thing, that was a little too familiar for his own liking.    
  
While walking there, he glanced over at the centre of the machine, at the label that read ‘Lily Castellanos.’ This was all absolute lunacy. He had to consider the fact that it was more likely that they were lying to him to get the core restored, than Lily being alive, but it didn’t quite make sense with why they would need him, rather than specialists or soldiers. Besides, if he and the people he had come to care about were to stand a chance, he wouldn’t have any choice but to restore the core.    


 

  
  
**Ruvik:** **  
** As he was certain that his partner was not about to crash down into the floor, he turned his attention towards the men that were working over by the machine. He was about to walk over to them to closer observe the preparation process, it was somewhat strange to think that he had never gotten to actually enter his mind the way that was intended. As little as he did like admitting it, the process of entering STEM was all theoretical on his own part, something that he had very little first hand experience with. 

He had gotten as far as to turn towards the machine as his partner addressed him, making him aware that the woman wanted to speak with him. She looked very uncertain as she voiced her question, clearly trying to avoid and still forcing herself to look at his face, he wasn’t certain if she was looking in his eyes or not. The scientist had no desire to have this conversation at all, he was much more interested in what was now happening behind his back, but as Sebastian gave him a look that told him that he wasn’t allowed to postpone this talk with the Agent.

“I am glad you made it out as well,” he began, speaking as he always did, with a monotone voice that Sebastian had informed him made him sound disinterested in the topic. He didn’t care too much, usually, but as he spoke those words, he realized that he might come off as mocking. “You did good to manage such a feat. I did not kill Leslie Withers, I had the intention to overwrite the boy’s mind and take his place, yet he was a lot bigger than both of us would have assumed.” He was looking her straight in the face, into her eyes, just like he had done inside STEM. “In the end, he accepted me, came to me willingly and allowed me to inhabit this body alongside him. If I wished to, I could allow you to speak with him, however, this is hardly the time for chitchat.” 

Her expression told him that she was very doubtful of the answer, something that made him continue speaking before she interrupted him. “You don’t believe me. I would suggest you to think back to the inside of my head, I seldom did little to directly hurt you, during the times we met, I simply spoke with you. Your biggest foe inside of my head was Mobius, and all the minds they forced inside of mine. I also remind you that the last time you met him, you were chasing Leslie with a gun. He has very bad memories related to you, a person he began to trust, and who betrayed that trust.” Upon speaking about the albino, he had ended up placing his hands on his own hips, looking down upon her the same way he did to Sebastian when he was informing the man of something he had done wrong. “I would not put him through that, not at this point when I need him to remain dormant, to save him from entering STEM alongside me and Sebastian.” 

  
  


 

**Kidman** : 

This sort of bullshit wasn’t what she had signed up for. Well, technically, Juli supposed she had signed up for being a mindless pawn of Mobius, and if that meant standing face to face with her own failures, then that was it.    
  
Life after STEM had been… hard. She was aware that the organisation was breaking Sebastian down bit for bit, on purpose, while she was getting off a lot easier. Besides, for all the horrors of that psychopath’s head, most of what she had struggled with in there were not that far from what she feared in reality. A good part, of course, was that the monster in there, her boss, wasn’t linked to the real deal, meaning that she had gotten away with rebelling, being pretty much the only link they had to what had happened on the inside; that was aside from Joseph and Sebastian, of course. Mobius did gather every little bit of information that could be derived out of them; surprisingly enough, Sebastian had ended up being the far more talkative one. 

Well, the short version was that she hadn’t expected there to be anyone else than Sebastian when she was informed to go get him. They really hadn’t told her anything, but it was clear from the way the Administrator talked to the albino, that he had more than well known that the killer was alive. If there was anything Juli hated, more than well, everything, was to be left in the dark. She hated not understanding what was going on, she hated being tricked, and she hated very much so that she hadn’t been informed of any of this.    
  
Seeing Sebastian together with that man, and seeing Ruvik act like a compassionate human being was so far…. Impossible to melt. Her mind so strongly rejected it that the young woman simply tried not to think of it, she tried hard. She would have to ask Sebastian about it when she could get a hold of him alone, it was so much easier to talk to him than to try to face the psychopath from all of their collective worst nightmare…   
  
Well, fuck you then, Seb. He told the albino to answer Juli. Wonderful, that was exactly what she did not want to have to deal with.    
  
She crossed her arms, as she tried hard not to look threatened by the man. She had seen Ruvik speak through Leslie Withers once inside STEM, and it had been a complete nightmare, seeing the innocent poor young man being controlled by a mad scientist… so why was it so different now? It wasn’t like the man was sounding any different, or acting any different, to her own frame of reference. While impossible to define exactly, there was just something so much more human about his expressions, about his voice, about his everything. Maybe her vision had simply been messed up altogether by seeing him fuss like a lovesick and worried wife over the detective. Ruvik just… seemed a lot less intimidating.    
  
His words though, she had… nothing to say. She couldn’t say it to this freak, but she had, ever since she heard the name ‘Ruvik’ voiced, felt a crushing sense of realization, that she had failed. That feeling only got worse and worse the more she saw and heard of the situation around her. While she desperately needed to know, she didn’t want to ask Sebastian how long he had been with the man, and what was going on. Juli was torn, exceptionally so, because she hadn’t only failed, there was this deep pit inside of her that was slowly filling up with dread, more and more, a creeping sensation, increasing by the minute, that everything she had done had been for nothing, for absolutely, damned, nothing. If the serial killer was telling the truth, then he had gotten out, everything she had tried to prevent had happened, but simultaneously, none of what she had feared, and been so certain would happen, had happened. Everything she had struggled for, all the terrors she had experienced could have been for absolutely nothing… fuck. She badly needed to keep her cool.    
  
Just like the Administrator was spouting lie upon lie to make the detective and scientist do his bidding, the ex junior detective had plenty of secrets of her own, and she couldn’t let herself be shaken from even such a shocking fact as this. Only…. If Sebastian actually had a relationship, sick as it seemed, with the man, then…. What of his wife. Everything would be different now. Maybe it was even for the better… seeing the task said woman had set out to do; maybe Sebastian would become less of a problem, in the very end.    
  
It seemed like this would all be a very bumpy ride, and a lot more of a mess than she had anticipated. She couldn’t voice a thing, Mobius had eyes and ears everywhere, meaning that she would just have to silently accept things, right then. 

Getting to hear that Leslie had lost his faith in her felt…. Oddly painful. That man-child really had his way of sneaking into people’s hearts, huh. Still, she wouldn’t believe a word Ruvik said without having it confirmed with Sebastian, and they had much more urgent things to work out.    
  
Lily needed saving, and the plan had to be set in motion.    
  
Juli probably had to say something to the albino that was talking to her. “… I see…” was all she could muster. She couldn’t start a fight with the man, not there and then. She couldn’t afford having her world shaken further.    
  
Instead, she nodded, carefully, and walked away to Sebastian, seeing he was getting ready to be inserted into STEM. 

  
  


 

**Sebastian:**   
The detective had only half listened to Ruvik, as he walked away from the two of them. He believed in his partner’s, rather newfound, social abilities. It seemed like the best way to let things die down would be to show that there really wasn’t anything to fear from the scientist, although, stubborn as he recognized Kidman to be, he imagined it would take some time for her to come to the conclusion which Sebastian learnt already inside STEM: Ruvik wasn’t evil, he had never been evil.    
  
Actually sitting down in a tub was feeling… surprisingly good. It felt like a conscious choice to step into something different, a clear point where he was going to be connected to the monster again. He… was a little shaky, but tried not to be, the drugs were still in effect, making it easy to focus enough to be able to not panic, he actually felt rather calm. The knowledge that he’d not be alone felt even better.    
  
Kidman had walked up to his side, starting to work on something on the computer screen connected to his specific tub. Well, he had no idea how these things worked, and thus, let it be, instead, he felt like he should ask, out of curiosity. “Did you calm down now?”    
  
It was clear on the look the traitor gave him, that she knew the deeper implications of what he was saying, and gave him a bitter look that even he could recognize and read. Even Sebastian remembered that people tended to shut their lips together into a straight line, when they were simply uncomfortable with something, and trying not to show it. “Yeah, sure,” she said, but honestly, the detective couldn’t find that he believed her. 

She focused on her work a little bit longer before she spoke up again; “good luck, Sebastian, and please, try to cooperate with any team members you might find in there. I know you don’t trust us, but they have the same goal as you do.” 

He really didn’t want to deal with more Mobius. “That’s alright, we’ll be fine on our own.” There was no way for the detective to know that there were deeper meanings to ‘the same goal,’ after all. It wasn’t like he’d actively work against the agents if their goal was to restore the core, he just didn’t want to deal with them, if he could avoid it.    
  
“Just remember to call the moment you find Lily, so that we can begin the extraction process. I’ll be out here for you...”    
  
Don’t sound sentimental, bitch. He glanced away from her, obviously avoiding her. Instead, he looked at Ruvik preparing as well, just like him about to enter STEM.    
  
He was upset, still, there was no way he could just trust Kidman, after all that had happened. She was just slightly better to deal with than all the strangers. 

While looking away, he completely missed out on Kidman putting an USB into the computer, only looking back once she stated, “and someone else will be in there for you.” What-...? Was she trying to say something she couldn’t state out loud? Trying to imply something he was supposed to know?    
  
“Are you ready?” She continued, and Sebastian just sighed, glancing over at Ruvik, once more, before he glanced right up, finding that the creep of a boss was staring down at him, half illuminated, like a giant shadow of a man, from a glass framed room above them, able to just look down at the machine from that window. Wonderful reminder…    
  
“Be careful in there, Sebastian. We’re counting on you. “ Yes, yes, he got it. She didn’t have to continue with that bullshit over and over. This was already a mess, and he was already left without any options or choices of his own. Still, Kidman was looking down at him, so he carefully nodded once, making sure that she knew that he had listened. 

“Great, STEM entry in 3… 2… 1…”   
  
Suddenly, it felt like he was falling straight through the tub, disappearing under the water, further and further away from the blurred face of Kidman, looking down at him.    
  
He had always hated falling in STEM, but oddly, it didn’t feel new, at all. It felt like his body remembered, after a while of falling through complete darkness, with some occasional water drops freezed in the air. The scream was just… well human nature of reaction. Finally it all stopped, and he found himself standing in complete blackness, water just covering about the surface of whatever he was standing on. It seemed hard, almost like glass, like a very smooth surface, but it wasn’t very slippery, and he looked down at almost complete blackness still. The only light, truly, was the one reflected right in front of him, like a strong reflection of white on water. Sebastian took a few experimental steps forward, finding that walking seemed just fine. 

“Is this… Where am I?” Looking around, he couldn't locate a thing, or a single person, not even Ruvik. “Ruvik?” he asked, almost called out. “... Lily?” It felt stupid, but if this was inside her mind, then it was at least worth a try. No responses came.    
  
He began walking, realizing that standing still would get him nowhere. The last time he had been stuck in STEM, the only way out had been forward, and forward he would move. Suddenly, there was a light in the distance, a pale image with lights in the window, a house shape he knew all too well. He felt a knot taking shape in his stomach, an uncomfortable feeling washing over him, as he walked towards it.    
  
Out of nowhere, the house burst into flames, like in all the old nightmares of his, and he heard the voice of his daughter call out. “Dad! Help me!” This… this couldn’t be real, could it…? Was it his memories? STEM did that, after all… if it was anything like the last machine. Either way, he couldn’t stop himself, almost like a programmed robot, he immediately, automatically, began running towards it, like in every dream. 

“I’m coming Lily!” Wait… this… it was starting to get a little cloudy whether or not he was just remembering or experiencing. He heard his daughter call out to him again, as he ran closer, but the house was still no bigger than his own fist, remaining in the distance, as it faded out of existence, and Sebastian stopped moving, suddenly realizing that he had become a little overwhelmed by his past, again, he stopped, looking around. What the Hell was going on.   
  
A voice resonated above him, and around him, his own voice: “I know it’s hard to accept, Myra… but she’s gone. Our little girl is gone…” 

“No! I’ll never accept it.” He hadn’t heard his ex wife’s voice for so long… well, in a sense, they were still married. Shock was written all over his face.    
  
Fine, he knew this. He was terrified. He was ashamed. It seemed that Myra had been right all along, and he didn’t listen, he didn’t help… and who would know what the Hell happened to her, if she went up against Mobius alone. He should have been there for her, he should have been there for them…    
  
A strong light hit him in the face, like the light of a… lighthouse. It blinded him. Suddenly, he felt rain hit his face and hair, and there was a light mist all around, Sebastian quickly turned, and in the distance, he saw the light of Hell; he could see Beacon Mental Hospital in the distance. He heard sirens, and the call they had received when first driving there, taking them straight to the damned place. Suddenly, the light grew stronger again, and blinded him completely. Upon regaining his vision, a few moments later, he saw something that looked simply like a desk… like a desk he recognized.    
  
What the Hell was going on? A fear started growing inside him, that he was bringing his own trauma and Hell into the mind of his daughter… he couldn’t possibly… this couldn’t be.    
  
Cautiously, the detective walked up to the desk, noticing a comradio ringing on it. He picked it up, and in an instant, like watching a computer load, the scenery around him began to change, slowly, but steadily, turning into his own office…. What the…    
  
He picked the comradio up, nonetheless, and heard Kidman’s voice speak, “Hello? Sebastian, are you there?”    
  
“Kidman… what’s…” ‘what’s going on’ he probably wanted to start.    
  
“Snap out of it. You made it in safely. How are you feeling?” 

How was he feeling? He didn’t even realize that he didn’t want to answer things to her, at that point, still being caught up in the shock.    
  
“Terrible, like the worst hangover ever…” He really did feel terrible, but a lot of it probably came from the confusion his mind had just experienced, and the memories...   
  
“Don’t worry, it will pass once your mind has adjusted. You are in an area separated from the main system right now. That’s how we’re able to maintain communication with you. This construct is called your ‘room.’ It’s a safe zone formed out of your memories. 

Okay… things were starting to make more sense, then. He had wondered if they were just throwing himself and Ruvik into the mess without any ability to contact them; this scenario made a lot more sense. Still, that was weird…   
  
“My memories, huh? If that’s the case, where’s my child? This place looks like my office as Krimson City PD.” He had just been stuck in the memories of losing her, or well, his nightmares and imagined scenarios of it. Was this supposed to be where he felt the safest…?    
  
“It was your subconscious that built it. You should ask yourself that question,” she answered. No, he’d rather not do that. 

“Where’s Ruvik?”    
  
“He should be able to join you in a bit, you’re connected. We gave the ‘room’ space to you, seeing… well you probably know already.” Of course he knew, they didn’t trust Ruvik with creating anything of his own inside STEM. Sebastian was… fairly grateful for that, actually. He trusted the man, yes, but he knew well the traumatized life he had led, that Lily truly didn’t need inside her head.    
  
He didn’t have time to answer before she continued, “let’s get down to business, we sent some information to your ‘room.’ Do you see anything unfamiliar?”    
  
Well then, he supposed that he would look around.    
  
  


 

**Ruvik:**

The talk wasn’t as much of a talk as it was her making a laughable attempt of answering what had turned out to be a bit of a rant. When he thought back, he most likely hadn’t spoken that much to her in total while inside STEM. She walked away to Sebastian after her short response, causing him to follow. 

It may be somewhat ridiculous of him, but the scientist could not shake the little part of his consciousness that was excited about entering STEM, this time, as an alive human being, and not as a core that became aware of its predicament. As he walked up to one of the tubs, reaching out and actually touching it, knowing his body would still be there (hopefully) when he opened his real eyes again, he felt his heartbeat speed up a little, beating with excitement. Getting inside it did not change the feeling. 

He looked around as he laid in it, half listening to what the woman and Seb were speaking of, but all the more interested in observing the machine from this angle. He would have liked to have a look at his own vitals on the computer screen, but as they were displayed on a screen that was turned away from him, he found that he couldn’t. The tub was being filled up with water in more or less body temperature, if they had followed his blueprints, which he had every reason to believe they had, then this water would remain the same temperature, along with containing vitamins that would be good for a body and mind exposed to stress. As much as the outside body would not show it, the inside of STEM did always come with an abundance of stress, which would put a strain on the mind if continued for too long. 

A man walked up to his monitor, causing the scientist to glance towards Sebastian, who in turn looked at him. He nodded before sinking back, allowing his body to relax, while focusing on himself in an attempt to keep Leslie away from STEM. The countdown began, lead by Kidman, and by her signal, the entry began. 

He felt himself sinking, as if he was sinking through the body itself. He briefly looked into the back of his sleeping body, something that he took as a relief, as it suggested him having managed to keep Leslie Withers safe inside of it. He sank deeper and the body disappeared, everything around him becoming black. 

He hadn’t experienced falling in STEM before, it was a very unsettling feeling that caused him to tense up while waiting for it to stop, unlike the common human response, Ruvik tended to go very quiet when he was frightened, instead of screaming. The falling finally stopped and he found himself standing in blackness still, more or less hovering in the air above an endless, black, lake. 

As he looked down at it, he realized something which took the wind out of him, and made it hard for him to breathe. The smooth, pale skin that he had gotten used to had been replaced by the all too familiar, uneven, burns that had pained him all his life. The hands were no longer white but back to being red and brown, he also realized then that he wasn’t hovering but standing, and that the burnt feet couldn’t recognize the feeling of the surface. His neck was so very stiff, turning and looking about was just as uncomfortably hard as it has always been. It took a lot for him to not lose his composure completely, to not sink down into despair and rage, to not break down crying or screaming. He should have known it would happen, that his mind still recalled his looks to be this walking corpse, and not the young albino. It also hurt that his mind recognized these clothes, the white rags, more than they did anything more decent, or real. The white rags were nothing more than projections of people, proving that they did no longer see him as anything but another horror inside his own mind.

After pushing down the emotions and managing to gather himself somewhat, he looked around again as he began to walk. It seemed as if the machine was still processing him, perhaps this process was longer because it had been designed by somewhat who didn’t understand the machine itself. Perhaps the entrance to his own head had been similar? Or could they in any way have designed this STEM differently? He began to walk as he pondered these questions, finding himself moving rather clumsily, until his mind remembered what walking used to be like. 

Everything did feel… familiar, however, he didn’t have any trouble teleporting about, but he found that the little environment he could see would not bend to his will. He would try it again when there were more things around but for now, everything seemed rather rooted in place. 

Now where was Sebastian? He didn’t see him anywhere but continued to walk, figuring that when the environment was done loading, he would find him. It was strange to be so… blind inside STEM, normally, he could feel everyone, or at least traces of them. Instead, he was just as unaware of the minds around him as he was outside of the machine. 

Before he managed to get worried, he spotted a light in the distance, thus moving towards it. He started to hear Sebastian’s voice, speaking to Kidman, as he approached, making him certain that he was moving in the right direction. The world around him began to fall together, and before he knew it, he was standing behind Sebastian, who was talking into what looked like a type of phone. He had heard most of the things that they had talked about, ending with the man asking about him. 

It was surprisingly hard to answer him right away, as it meant that the man was going to see what he looked like. He was even more aware of how unappealing he looked, how much his looks resembled a corpse, it was far too frightening to imagining his lover reeling back from his looks, for him to speak up. He needed just a little more time. 

Unfortunately, he was only given a few more seconds before the call ended, and he had to make himself known. It was better to speak up, he’d rather not risk the man turning around and being surprised by him. “...I’m here, Sebastian.” He lowered his head further, to make the hood hide as much of his face as possible. “It seems that my mind hasn’t accepted my new body as, well, my true looks. I…” He had to take a pause when speaking, having to stop to swallow. “I’ve lost most of my senses again, I can’t feel the ground underneath my feet. I will adjust to it, I should not be a hindrance, just… allow me to get used to it.” The last words were more of a whisper, a plea more than anything else. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--------- Facts and & Headcanons ----------
> 
> Joseph is alive: yeah, I mean, that's just a fact. However, in game, you need to gather all the picture slides, trying to avoid the female monster ghost Anima in the process, and confrot Sebastian's trauma, to get the last picture slide, and have Kidman tell you that Joseph is alive, and continuing with stating that it's a conversation for another time. 
> 
> Making STEM make sense: Yeah well, if you have read this series so far, you would know that we are filling in the blanks of what makes sense and doesn't make sense for a machine such as STEM. Note that a lot of the explanations originate in indepth research of the game content itself, but sometimes, we simply have to add our own explanations to make things make sense, at all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was what the man had: everything he had lost. If this were how he recalled that time, how bright and perfect it was, then what monstrous things must not remember from their first meeting? He knew that he was far from what the other man had probably wanted out of life, for the longest time, Ruvik hadn’t even believed that the two of them were in a relationship. He had believed it to be a matter of emotional comfort, as well as lack of other choices. If… Myra had still been there, there was no way that the man would choose him. As a matter of fact, Lily might be enough for the man to leave him. If they found her, if she really was here, perhaps he would become unnecessary in the man’s life… He could never be,.. be… This. He could never be like the woman, they would never live like this, if this… really was what Sebastian wanted, his perfect living conditions, he could never… Be that. Perhaps he was only enough because of circumstances, perhaps that had been enough for the moment but at the end of this, would the detective need him at all?

**Sebastian:**

He was a little more startled than he had hoped to be, and rather quickly turned around, to face his partner-... Sebastian didn’t mean to be that startled, but he did freeze for a second, staring at the burn victim he hadn’t seen since-... fuck. For a moment, he had felt panic start to rile up in his mind, it was likely that it was connecting the looks of Ruvik with the Beacon Incident… okay shit, he could do this. He had to do this. It wasn’t even that bad, not really.    
  
He had been in a relationship with the man for over two years, he could tell that Ruvik was suffering far more from the situation than he was letting on, and well, it had always been easier for Sebastian to be strong for someone else, rather than himself.    
  
Another bit of a startle was hearing Ruvik’s actual voice, because it had been so long since he had heard it.    
  
He hadn’t visibly reacted very much, and assumed that Ruvik hadn’t seen the shock on his face, or panic, given that the man was, like in those days back then, hiding his own face. Shit, well… this would be something to deal with, but it shouldn’t be that hard. They didn’t have time for too much of this. Admittedly, it was a little harder to look at the burn scars after being out of the Hell that was the old STEM, because in comparison to his current life, Ruvik did look pretty bad; back in STEM, Ruvik had been a humane blessing to look at, in comparison to all the other things the detective continuously witnessed. Still, he had gotten used to it once, he could do it again.    
  
He did believe Ruvik when he was saying that he would get used to it, he had lived like it for so long. Hopefully, the poor man wouldn’t end up with seizures and pain, the way he had gotten in the old STEM, but even Sebastian realised that there were probably risks of it.    
  
Most curious of all, was that Ruvik was wearing that ridiculous, tattered, and half-naked attire he had made himself known in, when they first met. The burn victim had been very clear about it not being clothes he had ever worn in the real world, but rather being proof that people whose minds were connected to STEM didn’t recognize him as a person any longer.    
  
Even like this, Sebastian was endlessly thankful for Ruvik being there with him. Fine, they had time for just a moment.    
  
The detective walked forward until he was facing the other, finding conclusive proof to his theory of Ruvik being shorter than Leslie, because he was, only with an inch or two. “Any idea where Leslie is?” he started, very casually, seeing that was the most urgent business. Then he reached forward and grabbed a hold of the edge of the hood Ruvik was using to hide his face, pulling it back and down, to look at his lover’s face and head… which lacked the glass dome and visible brain. Then again, Ruvik had pointed out to him, sometime a few months earlier, that the human brain wasn’t pink and that thing had only been an illusion of STEM, like the rest, there would have been visible bone structure of the skull in the corners, otherwise, and well, the brain wouldn’t be pink. Now, it was just burnt skin, but honestly, it was a lot better than any visible brain. He leaned down a little, and rather quickly, to catch his partner off guard, placed a soft kiss on the burnt lips, realizing, to his surprise, that his body still remembered the feeling of it. He was standing close, like any other lover, really, and placed a palm on the side of Ruvik’s face that was the least burnt, the one he knew that the scientist could feel. “Any reason why you’re wearing those rags? Can you change it? Should we find you something different?” He knew that the man preferred to look a lot more professional, and well, less like something out of a horror movie; besides, in case they’d run into people, it would be preferable. Yeah, Ruvik was never the reason for Sebastian’s trauma, he could definitely manage even with the man looking like a corpse.  His mind was adjusting fast, and it wasn’t hard to look at the other within mere moments.   


 

  
  
**Ruvik:**   
It felt good to switch the focus of his mind to something different than the uncomfortable, painful emotions that threatened to overflow to the surface. Leslie provided a distraction, one that was very welcome. “There is no need for worry about him, I am very certain that he was left asleep in his own body, while only my mind was transferred inside.”

Before he had the time to try and find a new focus to keep his emotions balanced, he saw the other man raise his hands, and the hood was carefully removed from his face. He blinked once before raising his head just slightly to glance at his partner. Said partner surprised him by leaning in and kissing him, it caught him completely off guard, making it impossible to keep the following emotions in check. “...I felt… that. I could feel it…” He breathed out, not realizing that he had been holding his breath. The eyes that turned to look at Sebastian’s face showed immense relief and pain as they met the detective’s, emotions that only turned more clear as he felt the hand touch his head. 

It was a tad pathetic on his part, but he moved forward and into the man’s arms, giving him a weak embrace. The ghostly touch of the man’s body against his own made the lack of feeling over his skin all the more apparent, but it also served to remind him that Sebastian was really there, that this was something he himself had chose to do. It felt good, he realized quickly that the other man was making an effort to move his arms around him in ways that made him capable of feeling it. 

When he pulled back again, he felt a lot better, only now considering what the detective had just said. He had been a tad too busy with his emotion to really think about what he was wearing, aside from what it suggested to have his mind remember it so clearly. It did seem very unprofessional to be dressed in the rags, he did indeed not want to present himself like a ghost if they came across anyone. “You are right. Seeing as this is STEM, it’s not necessary to search for anything.” He had spotted a clothes hanger behind Sebastian, something that reminded him that he truly didn’t need to go through with an actual change of clothes. The clothes on his person flickered and moved before they started to change color and shape. When the flickering stopped, he was dressed in a long sleeved, black turtleneck that covered his arms, and a set of darker gray suit pants, that would make movement easier. He had opted to not wear any shoes, as that tended to make his toes bleed, back when he was still alive in his scarred body, he also knew that nothing in STEM could actually hurt his feat, which made the need for shoes far lower. To add to that, he now wore a rather mismatched dark blue beanie with white stripes, with his clothes, one that covered most of his head and was pulled down far over his forehead to hide as much of the burns as possible. In his own opinion, it didn’t match all that well but it was the only reference of a headpiece he had. 

“I heard the parts about this being your mindspace, and you personal room which your mind built. While you look for whatever information she spoke about, I will inspect the rest of it.” He turned towards the left and began to look at, well, everything. He wanted to know more about the things Sebastian worked with, to see more things of the professional man that had stumbled into his head over three years ago.

  
  


**Sebastian:**

Admittedly, Ruvik might not have been the only one in need of a moment, and an embrace. There were just so many things that had happened all at once, and he had to make sure he could focus on the task at hand, despite the depressing notion that there wouldn’t be any real reward, and that things would turn against them in some way or another, no matter what. The embrace served as a rather good reminder that it was something they had to manage through, no matter what, for themselves, and for Lily. 

Touching the burnt skin almost caused a sense of deja vú, seeing his mind could only refer it to a single thing, person and time, a single reference. He rather quickly found that his mind has come to remember certain things, like the fact that he could wrap an arm around Ruvik’s right side, holding him a little closer, angling the arm upwards so that it touched the same shoulder, because his right side was far less burnt, just the way the left side of his face only had a larger burn over the lower cheek, but was altogether rather okay. There was nu hair to bury his nose in, anymore, but it wasn’t that big of an issue… heh, he supposed he’d be damned with how things changed. Some changes tended to be absolutely unthinkable, until one found that things had already changed and gotten adjusted. It was ridiculous that he had come to care so much for the man, which was starting to become a lot more evident then, given that Sebastian wasn’t the kind of man to spend a lot of time thinking about such things. Hell, in the past, he had only admitted his feelings for his wife, when she had gotten hurt, and he had been forced to realize that he could have actually lost her. It was one of his bigger faults, to not consider what he had until he was at risk of losing it.    
  
Fine, they’d make it, together; they didn't have a choice. 

It was endlessly relieving to know that Leslie was, in fact, not inside this new Hell hole.

Right, back on track, he observed how Ruvik’s clothes changed into something… strangely new. He had expected something different, something fancier, more proper, and perhaps business-like. Ruvik had always appeared in somewhat old fashioned clothes, and it just seemed to suit him, with that borderline aristocratic look, based on what the little life he had been having in the real world looked like. Seeing him in completely normal clothes was….. Strange. To his credit, Ruvik really had managed to turn into looking more like a burn victim and less like an intentional characterization of a horror villain. That would most likely be useful, given that they ran a risk of running into plenty of people. 

  
Ruvik reminded him of the work to be done, and he nodded, with a brief sigh; “yeah, fine, I’ll look around.” He didn’t need to respond to the man obviously initiating wanting to look around in his mind space, because he knew that the scientist would, no matter, as long as the detective didn’t object out loud; that was simply one of the ways Ruvik worked, in general. He really couldn’t find anything he had to hide from a man who had already seen mostly everything that had messed Sebastian up over the years. Of course, he barely had to look around, at all, before he spotted a lot of faces and papers with profiles he didn’t recognize, on the wall to his right. Right, great. He walked over there, and looked about. There were pictures of STEM, obvious details of a team of Mobius agents, probably the team that Kidman had mentioned, and some posters and advertisement for what looked like a rural community place called ‘Unity.’

He brought the comradio up to his lips again, and started talking, “Kidman? I found the instructions, I guess,” he started. 

  
“Sebastian? That took way longer than expected,” Kidman’s voice sounded through the device.    
  
“Yeah, well, I found Ruvik, and wanted to make sure that Leslie’s alright. He’s not in here; it seems he’s asleep in the body, so that’s a good thing, I guess.” He didn’t exactly know why he bothered, but he had a feeling that it was something his ex junior detective needed to hear.    
  
There was a silence for a few moments, and Sebastian was about to change the subject, but instead, Kidman spoke up. “Leslie is really alive, and in that body?”    
  
So she really was concerned, huh. “Yeah, he is fine.”    
  
“How can you be so sure?”    
  
“Listen, I’ve lived with them for over two years, he’s fine, and alive. He probably wouldn’t ever have gotten out of the hospital if it wasn’t for Ruvik. Ugh… we don’t have time for this, Kidman. Things weren’t the way we were told, back in Beacon, Ruvik isn’t what you think, and Leslie chose to save him, all on his own. Can we get back to work? What am I looking at, what the Hell is Unity?”    
  
There was another silence before he heard a heavy sigh. “Fine, Unity is the digital landscape we created to make the test subjects feel welcome and safe in the virtual environment.”    
  
“It looks like any other American rural city to me,” Sebastian commented.    
  
“Yeah, that’s the point, it reduces the stress levels in the test subjects, while we observe them.”    
  
Well… that was creepy. “How many people are even in here?”    
  
“Just a few hundred, the STEM chamber you saw was the main core, but there are several ones connected to it.”    
  
“Wait… so there’s several hundreds of people in here, and you still fucked up…. Ugh, nevermind. Fine. Okay. So we go to this Unity place, and find Lily? She’s in here, actually physically in here?”    
  
“Yeah, pretty much. She isn’t aware of being the STEM core, she’s mostly had a very good time, in this world.”    
  
Sebastian clicked his tongue once, biting back an argument he could feel would start if they kept going down that trail. He did not need to hear them try to trick him that what they were doing was okay, because it wasn’t.    
  
“And the these agents are the team you spoke of?” He needed to speak of something different.    
  
“Yeah, if you find them, please try to cooperate.”   
  
“I’ll… see about it. I’ll get going now.”    
  
“Good luck, be careful out there.”   
  
“Yeah, yeah.”

He pocketed the comradio once more, and turned to look for Ruvik.    
  
“Are you ready to head out? Done investigating?” He phrased the word ‘investigate’ in an almost mocking way; the both of them were well aware that the man wasn’t looking for anything related to their task, but he wouldn’t blame Ruvik, he was very curious by nature, and always wanted to know more. 

 

He did a quick roundabout in his office, to find that there weren’t any guns, or any doorway that would lead to a room that would have firearms. Great. Instead, he found a… black cat, probably with some albino trait, possibly, because the eyes were red. The cat seemed friendly, and was obviously a he, based on seeing the animal roll over on his back, awaiting scratches from the detective, upon approaching. He reached out and petted the creature, for just a moment. It was… strange, he had never seen the creature before. “I… don’t recognize the cat, do you?” he asked Ruvik.    
  
Upon looking around further, he discovered that it was simply his own office, the few connected office desks for his team, and a corridor right outside, there really wasn’t anything more than that. However, he also discovered… great. A baroque inspired, gold framed, mirror cracked and started lighting up, just like Beacon. “That’s probably our way out,” he pointed out, to his partner.    


 

  
  
**Ruvik:**   
He would disagree if he had heard Sebastian call him curious, in his own experience, it sounded somewhat too innocent to describe his interest in matters, and the desire to learn more, as something akin to curiosity. Whatever he did described him better, he did do exactly what a curious person did do, in heading straight to the closest wall to inspect it. He only managed to take two steps before he realized that he could simply teleport instead of forcing his limbs to move. Once he had realized this again, it was a lot more time efficient to do his exploration. 

The first thing of note was a billboard with a rather big picture of Sebastian, when he looked at it at first, it was beyond obvious, but upon further consideration he felt somewhat silly for immediately identifying the crude lines as the man behind him. The drawing showed the man, smiling in front of a police car, while… watering flowers? There were no flowers to be watered but the man was clearly holding a watering can.  The picture was drawn by a child, seeing as the sun had a face; even Leslie knew that a sun didn’t have a face. His focus moved on to the blurry photography next to it, one that had the faces smeared out. It reminded him of his own old family photos, the way they had been represented inside STEM, when he couldn’t quite recall what they looked like, and didn’t exactly care to remember them. He could see what looked like a family, with two possible children. The photograph was black and white, as well as faded, which made identification even harder; perhaps he would ask about it later. He spotted some other fliers nailed to the billboard but they were of little interest.

When he raised his eyes, he spotted a certificate from Krimson University, something that made him rather certain that Seb must have been proud enough of it to display it in his office, and not keep it at home. 

He teleported to stand in front of the bookcase instead, listening vaguely to the conversation that was happening behind him. He reached out and pulled one of the unlabeled books out but found that the pages consisted of messes of letters that meant nothing at all. He sighed, placing it back again with a feeling of disappointment. Interesting enough, there were a few books that did have titles. He could read _The working dreamer,_ or something akin to that, he couldn’t see the last letters of the last word, _Zombomb,_ _heat_ and finally, a book labeled _The Chapel_. All of these books were empty as well. Seemed like Sebastian’s mind only expected there to be books here and did not consider anything inside it. He could have stopped to analyze why the book titles were as they were, but he wanted to move on to other things, rather than linger. 

Behind him, Sebastian was asking about a city or town, he was able to listen to the conversation and so, got to know more about the whole, so very, very misguided ideas that Mobius had for STEM. As he inspected the various certificates and photographs behind a table and a sofa, he heard the man ask about the amount of subjects in STEM. The answer that the woman gave made the scientist freeze up before he immediately teleported over to Sebastian’s side, listening to the rest of the conversation while looking at the pictures. 

In theory, it really wasn’t hard to build a town inside someone’s head. If they were to create a house, or a room, to start in and then hold very clear lectures, while showing pictures of the town’s layout, the girl’s mind would create it. By later walking around with her, telling her what everything is and what it is for, the mind would register that too and make it work in a similar manner. Just repeat enough times and the town itself would become stable. He would assume the girl to have a very clear memory and imagination, as well as being easy to teach, this judging by the things that The Administrator had said about Lily Castellanos being the most stable core they had tested. Said conclusion also led to the belief that there must have been more young children abducted from their homes, something he’d rather not dwell on, it wasn’t of interest to them.

What was a problem, was that there were far too many people in there already. The machine was not built to, well, a mind was not built to support that many different personalities and ideas. Not to mention how long they had been in there, that was, if possible, an even bigger problem. STEM had “gone dark” about two weeks ago, that meant that a group of people had been locked inside STEM, with no contact from the outside world, while this world was also possibly falling apart. The pressure and stress that came from not getting the proper nutrition in the outside world, while everything went strange inside here would mean that people could very much lose track of themselves. As he had said to Sebastian many times: loss of self inside STEM would lead to creation of a Haunted. 

Sebastian turned towards him, having finished speaking to the woman when he was busy considering the implication of the same woman’s words. He nodded slowly, thinking about how to best put his discoveries to his partner, as to not reawaken the horrors that he had worked very hard to help keep in check. “Yes. I am surprised to see your University certificate, I see little merit to keeping it in your office.” 

As Sebastian did a roundabout in the office, he studied the pictures on the wall, which only added to his theory about showing the girls photos of a place and telling her that she was there, letting her mind do the rest of the work. He did look over a few more papers on the walls, but none were relevant enough for him to give any pause to. He did however look over when Sebastian mentioned a cat, there was indeed a black cat sitting in the office, on a table, next to a cup of coffee. “I’ve dissected many cats, they aren’t much like humans, which makes it a childish activity with little value, for someone who researches things similar to the ones I hold an interest in.” Upon being given a look by his partner, he realized that he hadn’t exactly given a useful, or normal, response. “...It looks like the cat that showed up close to Kidman when she was inside STEM, ask her instead of me.” He turned to read a few of the things on the walls instead, trying to see if anything could actually be read or if they were but random letters. 

After teleporting around the office, not finding anything especially useful, but noticing that there were fire extinguishers and fire alarm around the place, something that made him smile slightly, because the detective’s subconscious had obviously added them there, he heard Sebastian speak again, this time having found the mirror that Ruvik had noticed first thing when he exited the office room dedicated to Detective Sergeant Sebastian Castellanos. “Yes, that seems to be it.” 

He teleported to the man’s side, now looking up at him with a hint of worry in his eyes. “I don’t know how to say this without causing you discomfort, but you have to know a few things, going inside of there. If what she said through that phone is correct, then a lot of people have been trapped in here for a long time. You have to be ready for the inhabitants to be, well… Like Beacon.” He stopped to allow the word to sink in before he continued speaking again. “There could be an amount that has been transformed into different creatures, as their sanity has left them, and their bodies start to lose their shapes. I do not want you to be caught of guard against them, if so is the case. You found a weapon last time, because your subconsciousness started to expect finding one, if you know this beforehand, the weapon might appear sooner, which would of course make us both safer in there. We don’t know what we will meet, but be ready to run if we were to meet people that have turned already.”  

  
  


 

**Sebastian:**   
The look which the detective gave his partner upon having a University certificate mentioned was the simple look of having absolutely no idea what Ruvik was talking about, and thinking about it briefly didn’t seem to make the man any wiser. Honestly, he had no recollection of his University certificate being on his office wall. He let go of the thought and proceeded on, having forgotten the big deal his friends who graduated with him made of him actually managing to pass and finish, making a joke out of said certificate. It would have felt like an eternity ago to remember.    
  
So, the cat belonged to Kidman, in one way or another, or well, rather, was connected to her… He supposed he could ask, at some point, if he truly cared; it wasn’t like the cat was seemingly doing any harm, and Ruvik, who had seen it before, wasn’t reacting like the cat was a problem or threat. He’d ask about it later, locating Lily was a lot more urgent. Honestly, the morbid answers Ruvik often gave were everyday matters, at this point, and it didn’t surprise Sebastian that the man had dissected cats in his youth, he was a genius when it came to understanding of body anatomy, there really wasn’t much more to that, morbid as it was. 

His partner stopped him, and even the voice hinted at an unsettling worry that sent a chill down Sebastian’s spine. The detective looked visibly unsettled, but didn’t move or say anything, instead he listened to Ruvik’s explanation, and well, when the scientist said it, it seemed almost too obvious… “Fuck…” he breathed out, but didn’t seem anything near panicking, mostly just… upset? He was very upset with all the idiocy going on, and most of all, that his own daughter was caught up in all of it, angry and upset, but not angry at his partner for telling him. Hell, he was so glad that Ruvik could prepare him for what was to come, and understand and know things that he himself wouldn’t have, it made his chances far better.    
  
Ruvik… really looked worried. Fine, he got that, even if it was damned embarrassing and uncomfortable to think about. He did get why it would worry his partner quite a bit to imagine Sebastian in any scenario that reminded of the Beacon incident again. He wanted to argue against it, and remind his lover that he had survived Beacon, and the world inside the man’s mind. Instead, he took a deep breath and shrugged. “Then we better hurry up and find Lily.” His voice held a certain amount of assurance, and yeah, he really meant it. He would deal with that shit all over, if it was about his daughter, he knew it, even if it was stupid and unsafe in every way there was. He leaned in and gave his partner another chaste kiss, if anything as further proof that he would be okay, in some logic of him comforting Ruvik and not the other way around-...    
“Here we go again… into the looking glass…,” Sebastian muttered to himself, evidently a little annoyed with his mind’s subconscious choice of exit.

  
He grabbed onto his partner’s hand as he stared into the broken glass, feeling the world around him shift; it was probably due to his subconscious remembering how often he and the other had been separated from one another in STEM, that he really wanted to hold onto him, despite the fact that if he used his better judgement, he’d know it wouldn’t make a difference. 

\--

  
The world was just a little too bright, although, it was probably because Sebastian had closed his eyes for a moment too long, and he definitely had overworked himself the previous night at the office. Of course, his wife knew, as she was in the kitchen, preparing dinner alone, although they had, previously during the day, stated they would do it together, that specific day. Well, that was what life was like as a cop, he supposed, they often had to cover for one another, depending on how much their work was consuming of their everyday lives.    
  
He was comfortably seated in the living room armchair, a piece of furniture that had been a gift from his family, after the wedding, it was slightly mismatched with the other furniture, but that was only because it came from his family, and it meant something to them. Luckily, Myra wasn’t the type of woman who would be that pedantic about everything in the house matching, rather, she seemed to choose things out of personal taste.    
  
In front of the detective, his beautiful daughter was playing with her dolls, dolls that had been yet another family gift from his side of the family, as his aunt always had been having a bit of a creative side to her, and had then made knitted dolls that looked like the family. There was one for Sebastian, in his work uniform, and another one for Myra, and yet another for Lily herself. She absolutely adored them, even if Sebastian found the concept a little… creepy.    
  
“Oh no!” Suddenly, his daughter looked up at him, and well, like any child, there was almost a dog-like obvious sadness, a pure emotion, indicating that something was wrong, if the words hadn’t made it obvious enough.    
  
Sebastian blinked a few times and sat up straighter in the armchair, reaching his arms out to his daughter, and she ran straight into them, carrying the Sebastian-doll with her. He pulled his daughter up in his lap, and she then showed him that the stitches had broken right at the doll’s neck, leaving the head tilted in a strange, broken, angle. He couldn’t help but to smile, those damned dolls were silly and morbid as they were already, without being broken; “it’s okay; mom can fix it for you. She can fix anything.” He reached out and stroke her hair, experiencing a subtle, yet noticeable, tug in his chest, something painful. What-...?    
  
Lily took a moment to consider his words, and then immediately shone up, climbing down from her father’s lap, again, and then ran off to her mother. It seemed Myra said something in return, as she accepted the doll from the girl, and with a smile, said girl ran off. Only, Sebastian suddenly felt a strange nausea, a dizzying headache that made him lean forward, putting a hand to his forehead, his vision was starting to blur out, for just a moment, and he couldn’t really hear what they were saying.    
  
“Sebastian? What’s wrong? Are you alright?” The voice pulled him back into reality, and slowly the vision of his wife cleared in front of him. Her uniquely pale and icy grey eyes looked at her husband in worry, it always seemed like him to worry, and Sebastian had gotten very used to, over the last two years, to see those pale grey eyes worry about him, it was simply how Ruvik wa-... his head stung again, and he heaved a somewhat heavy sigh. He had no idea what he was thinking, and tried to recall the name he had just thought of, but it seemed impossible, right then.    
  
Instead, the detective smiled at his wife, feeling strangely emotional, like a solemn deep pain. He found that he was smiling, feeling a bittersweet mixture of joy and sadness, but decided that he was probably just tired. “I’ve got a wonderful family, an amazingly smart and beautiful wife..,” he started, without really knowing why he was stating the obvious, it just felt important, right then. “Why wouldn’t I be alright? Come here, Myra…” He reached out to grab her soft, pale hands, pulling her closer in the process. Everything was fine. Everything was as it should be, he didn’t understand why she looked so worried, even then, she looked like something was wrong, when he had already assured her that he was fine. Still… that headache just wouldn't go away, it was pulsating stronger and stronger. “You’ve been working too hard. It’s making you delirious,” she said, a clear statement, clearly worried, but in a sense a little demanding too; the statement in itself meant that he could not say that he was simply fine, because he wasn’t. Strangely, his mind wanted to tell him that it wasn’t Myra who said it, although he could clearly see his loving wife in front of him. He started feeling a little distressed, uncomfortable, as if something just wasn’t right, but it was impossible to really tell why. Before there was anything more he could say, he heard his wife’s voice fade out, mentioning something about him coming down with something, possibly having a fever, before the world around him went white, with a strange ringing noise in his ears. 

\--

Sebastian saw the mirror shine in front of him, and suddenly he was standing in complete darkness, to his great relief still feeling that he was holding his partner’s hand, and that Ruvik hadn’t left his side. He could barely recall what had just happened, it felt like awaking from a dream, only vaguely remembering things, just like he could vaguely remember the memories of his life in that house, with his family. It had felt so real, but right then, it just felt distant, distant and long gone. Strange… whose memories was that really? His own? Was it real? It seemed real enough. He took a few steps forward in the darkness, towards the mirror, but then suddenly, felt himself tugged backwards by his partner, and in the process, realized that the wooden floor he had walked on stopped, and there was a far too wide completely black pit between him and the wall with the mirror. The mirror just continued to fade out of existence…. Well then, he guessed there was no return from there. It was already starting to feel like Beacon all over, strange. Still somewhat shocked, he turned to glance over at the icy grey eyes of his partner, that looked at him with evident worry, which probably wasn’t so strange as he had felt completely out of it, for a moment. He took a step closer to Ruvik, and looked behind them, finding a set of decorated green doors. “What is this…? Do you think this is the right place?”    


 

  
****  
**Ruvik:**   
The scarred man entered the looking glass with a not very eased heart, but at least with the assistance of the other man’s hand in his. It was a little silly, but it seemed like something the other man desired, and so, he let him have it. In the scientist’s mind, there was no way in which they could be separated, seeing as there was only one place to go outside of this room, that being the main section of STEM. Inside of this place, the hidden paths were as hidden to him as they were to Sebastian, they were not likely to be separated. 

The world was just a little too bright, although, it was probably because Ruvik had closed his eyes for a moment too long, and he definitely had not done this to allow himself to focus most his attention towards the faint feeling of the hand that was gripping the burned skin that belonged to him. It took him until he spotted the girl and the woman until he realized what was happening. This was another one of Sebastian’s memories and upon realizing this, he found that he was standing next to a piece of furniture, in which Sebastian was seated. He looked younger, like he did in the photos from his wedding. His wife was in the kitchen, working on food, while the girl was playing before him. 

The picture seemed so very perfect, the picture of the American dream; a big, bright house, a spacious kitchen and living room, a beautiful wife, and a daughter who had Sebastian’s eyes. A family that loved one another. The sight made his throat feel dry, and his heart heavy. It became even more evident when the woman approached, carefully but firmly taking care of the man that had most likely overworked himself. Sebastian tended to do that. 

This was what the man had: everything he had lost. If this were how he recalled that time, how bright and perfect it was, then what monstrous things must not remember from their first meeting? He knew that he was far from what the other man had probably wanted out of life, for the longest time, Ruvik hadn’t even believed that the two of them were in a relationship. He had believed it to be a matter of emotional comfort, as well as lack of other choices. If… Myra had still been there, there was no way that the man would choose him. As a matter of fact, Lily might be enough for the man to leave him. If they found her, if she really was here, perhaps he would become unnecessary in the man’s life… He could never be,.. be… This. He could never be like the woman, they would never live like this, if this… really was what Sebastian wanted, his perfect living conditions, he could never… Be that. Perhaps he was only enough because of circumstances, perhaps that had been enough for the moment but at the end of this, would the detective need him at all? Mobius wouldn’t let go of the girl, but maybe a compromise would be found, a child did need their parent, after all.

The dream faded away, they were standing in front of a hole, one that Sebastian was starting to approach, Ruvik hurried to pull him to a halt, making sure he stopped before he hurt himself. He swallowed down his emotions, that had just been a memory, probably glorified, now wasn’t the time. 

He looked around as well, spotting the door. Something felt wrong, this didn’t seem like an especially calming entrance to a rural town. He suddenly felt very blind, unable to see or feel the things that he had been able to in the old STEM. “We are outside of your room, perhaps this is simply the way they design their… Entrance building. Seems unlikely, yet they may have.” He let go of the other man’s hand, it felt… wrong to hold it. He needed to gather his thoughts, stop acting like a child. This was not the time. 

Sebastian walked over to the doors and pushed them open, revealing a big room on the other side. The room had a collection of dark red drapes around it, waving ominous in an unexisting wind. In front of them, the wooden floor lead up towards a set of low stairs, one of the drapes, a very long one, was slowing being pulled back, revealing what seemed like a lit door. They exchanged looks before moving inside. They walked over the floor, towards the door, Sebastian’s shoes making very weak noises against the floor, something that seemed to echo in the giant room. Ruvik glanced towards the windows, finding that they were completely black, there was nothing outside, the only thing he could see was the reflection of a light from the inside. 

When they got to the door, it became evident that it was a door opening, with another door further inside it. They continued towards it, with the burnt man staying a little behind the other, since staying right next to him could become a problem if the man needed to make a more combative move. Behind the door, they found that the other one was a painting, surrounded by a very low fence. He didn’t know what it was, they were low little pieces of metal, that barely reached over his knee, connected together with think, satin ribbons. Sebastian made a frustrated noise and turned around to look for another way. 

“...The door is apparently there.” The detective commented, causing Ruvik to turn around and spot it. It seemed as if they had both agreed to stay as quiet as possible, since something was obviously wrong here, causing them to limit the amount of words they spoke to one another, at least for the moment. There were numbers on the door, alongside a sign next to it, saying  _ William Baker _ . 

The detective moved towards it and opened it, allowing music to flow out from it, it was a rather classical piece that seemed too calm for the whole situation. Sebastian entered before Ruvik, who could almost feel how much the man before him did not appreciate the way things were going so far. He followed the man through a short corridor that seemed to be from some manner of luxurious mansion, the carpet was thick and elegant, all the walls red. Sebastian tried to open a few doors but they were all locked, so they moved on. After a turn, there was a black door, this one gave way to the man’s push, said door swung open very slowly, allowing the music to flow out without any hindrance. 

The light shone on a green-grey wall, one that was very covered in strange photographs of closeups of the human body. Sebastian, who had entered first, gasped lowly voicing the words “what...the...Hell.” Ruvik teleported inside, appearing on the left of the other man. Before him was a bizarre scene, one that he had to look at twice before he managed to figure out what he was looking at. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-------- Facts & Headcanons --------
> 
> Ruvik's visible brain: In real, in the first game, Ruvik was nothing more than some of his vital organs connected to the brain through machinery, keeping him alive as a core, he never got to a state of having a glass dome in his skull with a visible brain. The real construction is visible in the DLC content of the first game, when Kidman discovers what actually remains of him. 
> 
> Pink brains in general: The Evil Within is magical in a sense of there being so many deeper things to analyze, things impossible to tell whether they're intentional on the creators' part. One of these things is that the human brain isn't pink, meaning that the brain Sebastian rips out of the machine in the end of the first game, and crushes, can't be a real brain. That is further supported with the idea of him waking up to the real world later, still being inside STEM back then, and the fact that we know what Ruvik's brain and body parts look like in the real crude machinery, rather than the sci-fi imagery Sebastian's mind made up. It was likely all just Sebastian's mind trying to cope with, and fill in the blanks of killing the man. A lot of things in the second game will be explained similarly, because it makes the most sense; the human subconsciousness is powerful. 
> 
> Ruvik's beanie: His clothing choices actually come from the official artbook of the game, and there is a clear drawing of him in a beanie with white stripes, among many other alternatives of clothing and looks. 
> 
> Timeline: It's been approximately 3 years since the Beacon Incident, as Sebastian states out loud in the game intro. It's been two and a half years since he started living with Ruvik and Leslie, and a little over two years since Sebastian finally admitted to be in a relationship with Ruvik, a little over a year since Ruvik even remotely dared believing he was in a relationship with Seb.
> 
> Haunted: There are clear hints in the first game indicating that loss of self awareness is what triggers the Haunted, and that Ruvik could influence them into turning worse, by making them experience things the mind could not comprehend, such as looking into their minds and memories. Frankly, Mobius seem to be complete idiots, thinking that they can erase people's self awareness and put them inside STEM, without any such instability as this happening.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He looked his partner over, realizing he should explain one more thing. “Yes, you could also teleport around, doing the same things I am doing, but your mind does not believe this to simply be, well, fake. You might know it, but you don’t fully understand it. You are very grounded in reality, Seb, if you feel the ground under your feet, you don’t understand how you could possibly fly. If I grabbed you and teleported with you, your mind, unable to understand it, would believe your body to be ripped apart, and so it would be. STEM is too real to you, which is why you cannot manipulate it.”

**Sebastian:**   
Whatever the vague dream had been, it didn’t affect the detective at all, and at the point of having to proceed, he had nearly forgotten it. They had an important mission, and well, something was evidently very fucking wrong.    
  
At first, they got into a room that looked something like a stage area at a hotel, or in an art gallery, and upon a bit of inspection, all of the doors and windows were firmly closed, and there was a total blackness outside. Well, the blackness itself didn’t worry Sebastian so much, it was how this STEM had started out, after all, loading up like it was a virtual environment, more or less. The fact that there was a single wall, disconnected from everything around it, and an open door to pass through, on the stage, was a little unsettling.    
  
It didn’t make any sense, and the deduction of it was simple; Kidman had clearly expressed that the subjects of STEM needed a calm and easily recognizable environment, something relaxing and simplistic.    
  
The short version was that this wasn’t simplistic, it just got worse and worse as the scenery around them kept changing, like it was some sort of haunted house mansion ride, at a tivoli, but disturbing and real. The place felt disconnected, because part of it was obviously something along an art gallery, but another part of it looked something in between a very lavish apartment complex, or simply a hotel area, because of the decorated doors and soft tapestry; only, if it had been a hotel, the doors wouldn’t have names on them, like in an apartment complex. He would like to ask Ruvik a lot about it, but the both of them knew well that something was very wrong, and that giving off their position, as they were sneaking around the area, wasn’t the best of choices. 

It wasn’t until they found the most bizarre sight yet that Sebastian felt he really needed to call Kidman. They had found the source of some classic music that had been increasingly audible the more they moved around. Eventually, a door had opened for them, letting out enough sound to indicate that it was the source of the music. It was further disturbing because with only one path open all the time, it made everything feel deliberate, as if someone was toying with them…    
  
The sight. Well, when Ruvik needed to look twice, Sebastian needed a few more moments than that. It was a man, dressed in a somewhat military fashion, which slowly led to the detective realizing that it was a Mobius agent. He needed to take a step back again, but the sign next to the doorway did confirm it; Baker was the team leader of the team whose information Kidman had sent over to his ‘office.’ The man was caught mid-air, in some bizarre position, almost like a painting, that moved in slow motion. There were red liquid clods in the air, and when he took a few steps into the room, he realized that it was blood, and that this Baker guy had been shot in the head, with something that packed some serious firepower. There was a flimmering cube around him, looking more like a light illusion than reality, shifting into blue, and it was obviously deliberate and something whoever did it wanted them, or people in general, to observe, as it was lighted up like a damned piece of art, and had an old fashioned camera standing in front of it.    
  
“... Check that we’re alone,” he stated to Ruvik, not realizing that he had been holding his breath until then, as he, nearly instinctively took a step back into a corner where his back wasn’t a target of anything or anyone, and then brought up the comradio again. He tried to start it, and it was obviously working, but the signal wasn’t going through, something was blocking the connection. “... Shit.”    
  
The walls were covered in photos of what looked like people, and it was clear, even for Sebastian who really wasn’t the artistic type of guy, and couldn’t care less about deep meanings and artistic expression, that someone was trying to capture something akin to terror and fear, the photos were close ups of body parts, possibly and hopefully still attached to someone, and shot with lighting and in ways that just made it look like something that was meant to be scary, to instill terror. Great…   
  
Upon having confirmation that they seemed to be alone, at least in the nearby connecting corridors to the room, Sebastian sighed. “Someone wanted us, or well, wanted someone to see this. This place looks like someone mixed an art gallery with a hotel, and then an apartment complex, and the layout isn’t making sense anymore. This can’t be Union, can it? It almost feels like back in Beacon, except it feels… more deliberate? Am I making sense? Fuck. Do you have any idea what’s going on?”    
  
He needed an explanation to what was happening, badly; Ruvik was his only hope for answers. Still, he had a very strong suspicion that he wasn’t in Union, this couldn’t be what Mobius wanted, it would be far too far fetched that it would be deliberate on their part. Sometimes, while scenarios were possible, they were so unlikely that they could almost altogether be excluded. So far, they seemed to be completely alone too, there wasn’t a sign of any other… living being.    
  
It just couldn’t be Lily who had created this, her mind wouldn't do it. If Mobius had turned her head into something like this…. Sebastian would make sure they would burn. Still, no, that was too far fetched again, it was much more likely it was something, or someone else, that was influencing it, just the way back in the last STEM, too, a lot of that mess had come from other people, not from Ruvik himself. 

He took a step forward and sighed, “what do you think this area here is?” He was obviously tempted to touch it, but wouldn’t do anything stupid when he had input from someone that knew better.    
  
  


 

**Ruvik:**   
Upon Sebastian’s instruction, he turned towards the closest door opening, one that was straight ahead and to the left of where they had entered. He could only move to areas that he was able to see, thus first moved to the opening and then continued to teleport inside. He entered a room that looked much like the earlier corridor, with red walls and lavish carpets. Straight ahead of him was a grey sofa, next to a small table, none of which were of interest to him, so he continued on. After a very short corridor, with a strangely placed mirror desk, he found himself standing in an office, filled with bookcases in metal, something that gave the whole room a strangely naked impression. 

To the left was a...red place. He couldn’t see the place clearly due to a drape, causing him to move there first and look. The light came from two redish, low hanging light bulbs, these being placed a little above a sink. He could see photos hanging above it on a line, they seemed to be the of similar motif to the pictures on the walls in the main room. He could see a photo lying on the desk, causing him to move closer and pick it up. It showed the scene from the other room, the one that was repeating itself, as if stuck in time. He would have to ask Sebastian to make sure, as the man was more likely than him to spot differences in these things that he was.  

Grabbing the picture, he continued on, this time having to walk as he couldn’t see where the path was leading. It quickly showed to just lead around in a circle to the opposite of the main room, making Sebastian visible again. Ruvik teleported back to the room with the metal bookcases, this time moving to the corner to check for people there. It was a dead end, no people visible at all. 

He returned to Sebastian’ materializing in the door from which they had first come. “I cannot find anyone, we’re alone.” The man in front of him seemed more and more uncomfortable with the whole situation, but it was rather attractive, the way he remained cool and in control, even when things were starting to seem wrong. “Yes, you are making sense. It’s rather evident what is going on, calm yourself and look at what you are seeing. This is deliberate.” He handed the other man the photo, after teleporting to his side. “You said it looks like an art gallery, while I don’t know exactly what that is, the purpose should be showing off artwork, correct? Someone has set this up to be viewable, perhaps for their own pleasure, or other reasons, but it’s not relevant. This isn’t Mobius, they wouldn’t leave such an obvious clue to their deeds, which makes this an outside source.” 

He teleported over to the camera and looked inside it, seeing the view which was reflected on the photo he had handed to Sebastian. “It… Is a field, a part that has been frozen and repeated in time. It… seems to be because of this camera. All this leads to only one conclusion: Mobius has placed a real psychopath inside of STEM.” 

When he looked back, he realized that his partner was giving him the angry-confused-Sebastian stare. It was a look that the man wore when something was deeply bothering him, and he was incapable of understanding the reasoning as to why it had happened in the first place. It had happened mostly inside of STEM, making him feel almost nostalgic, seeing it again. “I believe we have discussed it before, but I will repeat it again: as all of this is going on inside our minds, while we interpret these scenarios as real, they are not exactly real. I spoke how your subconscious was able to find ammunition for your weapons because your mind believed you could, that is why you found bullets that fit your guns in the first place, instead of some completely different bullet. I was able to manipulate STEM, and still am, because I know that this isn’t real, and that the laws of physics do not apply here. Leslie was able to do it because his broken mind had a lose grip of what was real in the first place, meaning that when he was experiencing extreme discomfort and couldn’t make sense of the world around him, it started to break and bend. This right here,” he lightly tapped the camera “is a device for capturing a moment in time on a piece of paper. With the understanding that this world isn’t real, this person may have stumbled on, or deliberately tried out, if they were able to manifest the idea of a photography for real, inside this space. The principal would be similar for anyone who could comprehend that STEM isn’t real, or for someone who has a different understanding or grip of reality. In this case, I believe it’s a psychopath because of,” he gestured towards the repetition of the murder that was happening in front of them. “But also because in theory, psychopaths would be the type of people, with the most lacking sense of rules and laws to begin with. Their minds can logically reason with and understand rules and laws, but do not feel obliged to follow them, their whole worldview tends to be completely different to what other people would understand and see. For something like this, a psychopath could have… similar, if not even more powerful abilities than I do. In worst case, it is possible that they could have figure out how to manifest things, as well. I have no proof for that, but it is a possibility we should keep in mind, moving forward.” 

He looked his partner over, realizing he should explain one more thing. “Yes, you could also teleport around, doing the same things I am doing, but your mind does not believe this to simply be, well, fake. You might know it, but you don’t fully understand it. You are very grounded in reality, Seb, if you feel the ground under your feet, you don’t understand how you could possibly fly. If I grabbed you and teleported with you, your mind, unable to understand it, would believe your body to be ripped apart, and so it would be. STEM is too real to you, which is why you cannot manipulate it.”  

  
  


**Sebastian:**

After a few more tries with the comradio, it really seemed like they were caught in a dead end, completely unable to contact the outside… great. By the end of Ruvik’s talk, Sebastian was standing right next to the square area that was shimmering in blue, with the victim inside.    
  
Ruvik was very good at explaining things, and to Sebastian’s knowledge, the man had always been very good at explaining things, at least in the detective’s presence. The scientist was bright enough to be able to explain and realize what the other wouldn’t quite grasp, and continue explaining, without Sebastian having to say a single word, which in itself, was impressive.    
  
Most of all, it helped the detective remain a detective, and not overgo entirely to a worried father, which he was, as well, but didn’t quite have the time to be. Logic and guidance, giving him a chance to act, calmed the man more than just anything, and Ruvik was well familiar with that fact, meaning that he received all the calming he needed from his partner, to be able to keep going. Actually, the explanation did make a lot of sense, and if anything, it was really worrying. Anyone who was at least half-aware and able to think critically about consequences would figure out that the idea of letting a psycho like this roam free in a space where they could create anything they wanted, that was…. Bad. Well, more than bad, it could be disastrous. 

Ruvik’s deduction did make sense as well, the little they had seen of the space itself was textbook psychopath. If Sebastian let his imagination run wild, he imagined a person who was a true show off, and really wanted to make a scene out of this all, taking pride in their creations. Someone who enjoyed toying with them, and who was a step ahead of them. It would have been different if doors hadn’t opened for them, like whoever it was tried to guide them the exact way this person wanted them to go.    
  
He kind of understood what Ruvik meant, he really could not imagine himself teleporting or committing any such incredible feat. He knew that the subconscious affected STEM, and he supposed that someone out there would be able to imagine all that which he himself couldn’t, and as Ruvik said, that someone might just be a psychopath, rather than highly aware, like Ruvik. Perhaps that was one of the reasons for people around him always labelling the scientist off as a psychopath, in the past. Sebastian vaguely recalled a conversation in the previous STEM about the fact that the man was nothing like a psychopath at all, despite everyone repeating that he was, people who never cared to understand or get to know Ruvik.    
  
He let out a sigh and pocketed the picture of the Mobius agent, realizing that it was proof worth hanging onto. “The doors and corridors are changing from instant to instant, so let’s just assume that this someone, or the people behind this, knows how to handle and ‘manifest’ things. Let’s just, be damned careful,” he started, then turned to glance at the agent once last time. “What was in the other rooms?” he followed up with asking, and upon hearing that there was, what by description sounded like a photo laboratorium, he immediately headed over there to investigate.    
  
“The equipment is very outdated, people use digital cameras nowadays, I am going to assume that it’s a hobbyist who has taken upon themselves to learn older techniques,” he pointed out, while going through shelves and cupboards in the room. He realised that it felt a little better to deduce things out loud now that they knew the fact that they at least seemed to be alone. They obviously worked the best when working together, and not working together would just be a waste.    
  
Based on Ruvik’s earlier explanation, something hit Sebastian, and he glanced over at his partner for a moment, “do you think… that they might have built this place? It’s evidently a mix of different buildings, based on its architecture, and it seems like only the exact tools that have been used exist, because everything else is empty.” He imagined a place like Union to have a lot of things that were there just for show, to make everything seem all the more real, but this place certainly wasn’t like that, at all.    
  
Upon continuing to investigate, he soon found that one of the bookshelves in the other room had been dragged across the floor several times. “Someone tried to block the exist,... or the entrance,” he stated out loud, but upon kneeling and touching the marks, they seemed… nearly carved out. He got up again and reached out to give the shelf a light push, realizing that, yes, the shelf was heavy, but not necessarily heavy enough to leave such deep markings, that were such an obvious clue to the thing having been moved. “This shelf isn’t heavy enough to grate out those deep marks in the floor… someone obviously wants us, or whoever, to find this entrance. It’s almost like a damned tour.”    
  
He pushed the shelf aside, just a little bit, revealing a corridor behind it, that for the moment seemed empty, but had a light on at the end, revealing what seemed to be a planter with red roses. The architecture had changed from modern and red, to much older, looking like a rundown, victorian corridor. He only left just enough opening to be able to get through somewhat easily, so that he would be able to get back easily, and still able to block the entrance with the bookshelf, in case they’d run into something. Ruvik could just teleport through, after all.    
  
The new place really did look like an old building, making out a rundown apartment complex. To his left, there was a dimly lit metal gate, blocking the entrance to a rather large room beyond it. There was a pedestal with a sign on it, across the room, but it was impossible to see what it was, from such a distance. To the right, in the somewhat dim room, there was a reception desk for something. “Hey, can you see what that thing over there says?”    
  
What Ruvik found was rather alarming, as it seemed the little metal plate had the name ‘Sebastian Castellanos’ carved into it, and the doors on the other side of that, otherwise empty, room, were firmly shut and locked. What the… All they could do was agree that someone knew that they were there, most likely, even if there was a vague possibility as well that the name simply was something the core recognized. Still, the scenario was beyond creepy. To calm his partner, Sebastian pointed out that he had been through worse, and that they should just move forward. The other way led them to a larger room with a stairway up to other floors. Once more, a corridor to the left was blocked by an iron gate. Well, someone really wanted them to go a specific way, it seemed, as there was a door, open, to the right. Sebastian was about to head over there, as the old fashioned phone, in the open area, rang. Well fuck… he swallowed and walked over, picking up the phone.    
  
All they could hear through the phone was a…. Well almost stereotypically evil laughter, before the other end disconnected. “Shit, what was that… yeah, okay, they know we’re here.” Whoever it was had to know, it was getting ridiculous.    
  
It showed later that the door was blocked by furniture on the other side, despite being open, and Sebastian almost got a feeling that someone was mocking them, baiting them. While he could have moved the furniture, he could catch a glimpse of the corridor fading out into nothing, as if it wasn’t finished, so yeah, maybe not that way. Instead, they had to go upstairs. Even the old apartment complex had frames neatly put up with photos of the same kind as previously, so the place probably belonged to the same person.    
  
To their left, there was a half open metal gate, by transporting to the other side, Ruvik found and brought back a letter in an envelope. It was… some sort of bullshit religious crap about truth seeking and ascending to the next level of something that was probably part of some kind of cult, the way it sounded. What was far more interesting was that the backside of the thing had a handwritten, rather clumsy note, saying ‘Lies! All lies!’ He let his partner read the thing as well, before he turned it, “do you… think it might have something to do with that Church? Cedar-... something? As you said in the past, it is well possible that the cult in that church your father donated money to was probably involved with Mobius in some way, and this symbol kind of looks like the one in Beacon.” He turned the envelope and placed it in Ruvik’s hand again, so that the other could read the ‘lies’ message as well, “the style of the handwriting suggests that whoever wrote this was either in a very big hurry or very upset, given how messy it is, but mostly because of the bigger hand movements required to write like this.”    
  
While awaiting a response, he stepped over to the glass doors that were right opposite of the stairways. There was almost complete darkness beyond the glass, except a somewhat square shaped white light in the distance, and thus, Sebastian reached out to try his luck with the door handle, but it seemed locked. However, suddenly enough to startle the detective to take a step back, and feel like his heart had been caught in his throat, a human figure, what seemed a woman in short hair, was slammed up against the glass on the other side. He could hear her voice, begging, screaming desperately for help, before something dragged her into the darkness beyond. He tried again, more desperately, to open the door, but it didn’t work. “Fuck-..! … what the Hell is going on?!”    
  
Nonetheless he stepped away from the door, and to the side up the stairway, not liking the idea of being close to whatever had pulled that woman inside. She was probably far beyond saving already. Upon taking a few breaths and calming himself, feeling anger rile up inside him when there were victims to consider too, and risk of more lives, he realized something. “Do you think this place is connected to Union…? Maybe that was someone from Union, wandering in here…” He sounded a little shaken, but not in a scared way, more in a frustrated and angry way, trying to not take it out over his partner. He realised that he hadn’t even gotten an answer to his first question yet, seeing whatever happened to that woman caused quite the distraction.    


 

  
  
**Ruvik:**   
From their conversation in the photograph room, only one thing was really worth noting, that being when Sebastian suggested that this whole place was else’s construction. It seemed to make the most sense, rather than this being part of Union. After all, Mobius, those cluntz, had been able to assist his unimaginative partner to create a space of his own. In the hands of someone who had imagination to spare, something like this seemed almost easy. 

They moved on, things turning more and more uncomfortable for them both, Ruvik in particular was very unsettled by the sign that mentioned the other man by name. It was eerie similar to the art exhibit that was the Mobius agent, whoever had done it was ready for and waiting for Sebastian, however that was possible. Then came the phone call, which ended up being rather tame compared to the emotions he had felt when reading his partner’s name on that plate. 

After climbing some stairs, or rather, Sebastian climbing and Ruvik following in short teleports, as his body made ascending stairs very hard. Up on the stairs and behind a half open iron gate, Ruvik found an envelope, which he handed to the other man. It took him a few seconds to read it, giving the scientist enough time to read as well, it made him feel even less enthusiastic about the situation. “Cedar Hill Church, yes.” He accepted the paper, turning to read what the other was theorizing about. “...Mh.” It was so very attractive to listen to the other man doing his work as a detective, intellect and signs of such were things that the burnt man appreciated a lot, and it wasn’t something he had gotten to see much of, in person, in the past, not to this very extent. 

Ruvik looked at the note, thinking as he observed the religious symbols, so very close to the ones that his father had regarded as the true religion, as the fool he had been. The symbols brought back a collection of uncomfortable recollections, things that he pushed down firmly. Thinking about things too hard in STEM tended to have negative consequences. 

There was a loud scream, followed by another loud noise, causing him to turn his whole body around, towards Sebastian who was desperately trying to force the door open while cursing. Ruvik didn’t realize what was going on until he considered that the scream hadn’t at all sounded like his partner. It seemed like someone had been there and disappeared very quickly. He teleported over to the other male, reaching out and touched his arm, “Stay calm, I know it’s not the best time to say that, but keep your focus.” 

“Do you think this place is connected to Union…? Maybe that was someone from Union, wandering in here…” Sebastian voiced a very clever deduction, while also informing him of what had happened just now. 

“...Yes.” He thought about it, coming to the same conclusion as the other man. “This does have a, rather, well… Trap like feeling to it. If this place and Union are connected, it would make sense to have these strange little… horror scenes and exhibitions. Some of the more famous cases that deals with psychopaths tend to revolve around them wanting attention for the things that they have done, crimes that they have committed. The subjects of Union would provide excellent entertainment for someone who enjoys the chase. If that really was a Union citizen, then this may just be the hunting ground. It’s possible that they aren’t aware that we are here, at least yet.”

He stopped to think his next words over before he spoke them. “If we were to end up facing them, hiding or running seem to be the best choice. You don’t have a weapon and I… highly doubt I could do anything to assist.” It hurt to say that out loud. Myra, Sebastian’s wife, she had been a cop, as well. Sebastian didn’t have to take care of her, they had been a team who were capable of doing things together, the detective didn’t have to take care of her. “I will make sure to hide, even if it might not seem that dangerous, until it has passed.” 

They continued to move on, heading up the stairs and around them, until they reached an open door with flowing red drapes coming out of the blackness, drapes that danced in the same nonexistent wind as when they had first entered this mindscape. The black door lead to a room filled with drapes, one that seemed otherwise empty, so they simply passed through it. They reached a pair of white doors, illuminated by the same reddish light that had lit up the photo room. Sebastian walked up to them and pushed them open, entering the room at the same time. 

It was another big room, with a very high ceiling, giving off the feeling of being some manner of waiting room. There were sofas right in front of them, as well as an art display over by the far end, as Ruvik could see golden frames and an old sofa against another red set of drapes. The left side was covered in big, white windows, while the other seemed to be just like a wall. However, there was a crash and Sebastian held out his hand to signal him to stop. A person came running from the far right of the room, seemingly from a corridor or room that they couldn’t see, he seemed panicky and scared, enough so that Sebastian did not risk calling out to him. The man turned around towards the way he came when suddenly, an noise between a hissing and the noise of steam sounded, bringing with it a man who had just teleported in front of the other. The place where he had just appeared was briefly covered in blue, sharp smoke before it disappeared, leaving only a man in a blue suit with dark hair. 

Sebastian made a dash towards the closest sofa, prompting Ruvik to do the same but by teleporting. They both took cover but Sebastian moved to peek on what was happening on the other side of the furniture. Ruvik heard the sound of a weak grunt and then, the much louder noise of a camera going off. Then, there was suddenly a much closer noise, the sound of something falling and hitting the ground. As a voice spoke out the words “what was that,” Sebastian cursed and turned towards him. His eyes looked chased and a little guilty, making it evident that he had knocked something over. 

Ruvik looked towards the glass of the windows, spotting them both being reflected in it, something that did make his heart skip a beat. If the man looked towards the glass, he would be able to see them, even if they moved around the corner of  the sofa itself. Yet they didn’t have much of a choice, as the glass also assisted in showing the burnt man that the photographer was heading towards the spot they were. When he was able to confirm that the man was moving, he teleported to the end of the other couch, giving Sebastian as much room as he could for him to move.

With his heart hammering away in a very, very uncomfortable pace, he watched the man walk over to their original hiding corner, where he stopped. The room seemed to almost echo with the sounds that the man made, these being low humming noises as he was most likely considering what had caused whatever it was that fell to fall. Then he continued on towards the white doors that he had Seb had entered from. 

It was with immense relief that he heard the doors fall shut behind the man, he waited a little longer, until Sebastian gave him a signal that it was okay. Ruvik got up with the help of the other man, before they both looked at the man in front of them that had been captured in the same unending loop as the first one they saw had. None of them risked saying anything, instead they moved towards the doors that the man had come from, exiting in somewhat of a hurry without risking the man coming back if they stayed in the same room. 

Sebastian once again pushed open the doors, and they opened to a strange corridor, the whole left side was missing, as well as the floor on that side, it seemed to have been ripped away, leaving enough floor to walk on for them both, but nonetheless giving the impression of destruction. To the left hang the same photos of body parts and close ups of people, in a completely black void. At least it seemed to be one, until Ruvik moved forward and was able to see a similar corridor on the other side of the blackness. Sebastian closed the doors behind them and they hurried down the corridor, with aforementioned man stopping now and then to check on the doors, finding them all locked. 

By the end of the corridor was the same apartment complex, this time with a giant shadow that moved from the space inbetween the spiraling staircase. It took until they stood almost under it to recognize it as a pendulum. In the corridor left was some sort of film that was replaying itself, showing a blinking eye but in the right one, they could see an open, red door. They moved towards it but as it snapped shut, Sebastian turned on his heel and shook his head.

Instead, they made it up the stairs, they both spotted the eerie detail that next to the pendulum hung two bags, wrapped in string, that seemed to be in the shape of bodies. When they approached the only visible passable doors, being a set of white, see through glass set, the sound like a hissing whip was heard and the man in blue appeared by the end of the corridor, causing them both to back away, while Sebastian was peeking carefully to see what the man did. It seemed like he was simply walking away, because Ruvik was soon called forward by the man moving his hand. 

They waited for a little while and then followed towards where the man had gone. Ruvik was trusting Seb in choosing what was the best course of action, with a man who could move anywhere at will, it did actually feel safer to trail him that it did being in places where he could appear behind them.

The corridor was filled with photographs, it almost felt like some of the ones of eyes blinked at them, but that was ridiculous. This seemed to be the same space as the corridor they had just passed, this appearing to be just above it, as there now was a void of black to their right. The corridor itself lead to a small staircase, which in turn lead to another floor. Something was visible in the darkness but as they came closer, it began to light up. 

They slowed their steps but it was continuously lit up as they continued towards it. When they came close enough for them to see what it was, Sebastian let out a weak “christ.” Ruvik, on the other hand, lacked any words with which to express how uncomfortable the creation made him. What he saw was a collection of bodies, seemingly real human bodies, out of flesh and blood, gathered in a… curious shape. It seemed to be a woman, suspended in air with wings made out of arms, all around her were stitched together bodies, seemingly emerging from a body pile on the ground. Together with all the white and flesh, were a collection of flower petals, making the display seem a lot like the other exhibitions they had seen and now knew to be the work of a (highly likely) psychopath with a camera. 

“...What is this for?” Ruvik was the first one to break the silence, speaking in a very low voice to avoid drawing too much attention to them, seeing as this room was otherwise empty, which meant that the man in blue must have removed himself from the scene altogether. “Is this some manner of religious symbolism? I don’t understand.” The last was said almost annoyingly, as if the thought of not understanding something bothered him. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No, he was not alright. 
> 
> First and foremost, that was a moment where he was certain he would die, right there and then. His heart still felt caught in his throat. It took a moment extra for him to realize that he could have, and would have, ended up in one of those looped spaces, and that psycho had literally chosen not to do it. Now this was just direct fucking mockery, beyond being toyed with. He could have killed the detective, but the man didn’t. The after shock was always pretty bad, knowing that one’s life could have ended in that exact moment, and he would have left Ruvik alone in there, and left Lily alone, too.

**Sebastian:**   
The detective really didn’t like how it felt like the psycho in a suit wasn’t really trying; let’s be real, what idiot would hear a clear noise in a room, and then just walk to where the noise came from slowly, take a look around, and leave. Any sensible person would check the nearby hiding places, which could only lead to the conclusion that the man truly wasn’t trying to find them, right there. Maybe, he was simply enjoying the chase, confident that he would kill them all, it was impossible to really tell with any certainty. 

When the suspect of the well… crimes, was gone, they moved out from where the man had emerged, moving forward. Sebastian made a, rather brief, mental note that the new victim, frozen in time and space, didn’t seem like a soldier or Mobius agent of any kind, at least when judging by a quick look, because a quick look was all they would have, they wouldn’t be idiots and risk staying.    
  
Hence, they moved forward, and the more they moved, things just gradually turned worse and worse, or well, in a sense, more and more bizarre; this whole thing definitely was deliberate, and the weirdo in a blue suit was certainly the prime suspect, they just couldn’t be absolutely certain that he was acting alone, just yet.    
  
The art seemed to have purpose, like, obvious ones, how a bunch of hanging photographs of facial  parts and body parts made some abstract illusion of creating faces, and there was a lot of moment capturing going on, with flowers emerging from the gore, as some sort of growth. The messages were simple, and a little redundant, as they always came over and over in history, people always wanting to illustrate life and death, in such ways. Even someone like Sebastian, who would just groan and be annoyed if anyone asked him for an artistic opinion, realised these things. Everything seemed a little simple and redundant, and the dangerous haunted house tour continued for a little longer, until they reached a room that held the biggest ‘art piece’ of them all. They approached the large room, the world around them being less and less intact as they went on, and the lights turned on just perfectly to see the giant sculpture in all its glory, very precisely timed.    
  
“Christ…” he muttered, not certain what else to say, as he took in the sight of the only almost captivating piece of art he had seen in the twisted madhouse they found themselves in.    
  
The blue field wasn’t anymore a cube, but rather made up for almost an illusion of a cylinder glass display, holding an enormous art piece in the air. Worst of all was that the piece was evidently impressive, but the detective refused to get distracted. He looked around and made sure that they were alone, not that it mattered much if the psycho teleported, but at least, they seemed alone right then. He spotted the little pedestal with the metal sign reading ‘Rebirth,’ obviously referring to the huge sculpture in the fake glass casing.   


There was the shape of a woman dressed in flowing white fabrics, body parts gathered together to make the image of an angel in all its glory, rising above a pile of corpses, elegantly shaped wings, out of human arms, carrying her up in the high, towards light sources, having been added to create that Heavenly light. Further, mutilated bodies were rising from the ground, and the way the angel held her arms, suggested the imagery was meant to tell it was her doing. The heads of the bodies had red roses supposedly growing out of them, giving that idea of new life, as seemed to be a reoccuring theme in the man’s art. If there was a single piece that even Sebastian Castellanos could admit to was impressive, this was it, which probably was why all the other half-assed artistry had led up to the man wanting to display his masterpiece; it seemed rather safe to assume that the man in the suit was behind this.    
  
Sebastian knew one thing for sure, however; no matter how impressive this piece of art was, it was never anything but disgusting to murder and hurt lives for twisted creative purposes, it made the man no more than a sick psychopath, in Sebastian’s book. Even being impressed with a single piece of art by the man left a sickening feeling in the detective’s stomach.    
  
He was so taken aback by the art piece itself that he was actually a bit startled when Ruvik spoke up, questioning the piece altogether. For a few moments, Sebastian looked surprised at his partner’s lack of understanding for such an obvious message, given that Ruvik was a genius. It took him a moment to realise that the man knew little to nothing about religions that weren’t connected to that crazy cult his father had been involved in, something they have noted a year ago, or so. Of course the piece would make little to no sense, for a man that had never turned to religion, who had never contemplated such questions, or listened to such bullshit.    
  
For Sebastian, it was simply his Catholic background, originating from his family, making the whole thing obvious. However, with the years, his religion had evolved into the sort of topic that everyone in the family would know to avoid, or the Christmas would be quickly ruined by arguments. He was never very faithfully religious, preferring to focus on what was happening in his actual life, and preferring to act before praying that some divine power would intervene; things just didn’t happen unless one made sure to make them happen. He had barely kept it together when his aunt had suggested he’d pray for his lost daughter, but he had defintely screamed at her. Most of the tragedies in his life had brought him further from his relatives, as many of them saw fit to think that faith would somehow make it all better, or prevent more shit from going to Hell, which wasn’t the case, of course; it prevented them from having sympathy or understanding, and simply made Sebastian isolate himself more.    
  
He sighed, and glanced up at the piece again; “the sign says ‘Rebirth,’ referring to the angelic figure lifting the mortal bodies into a new light and life-.... Maybe, something like that. It’s just Christian bullshit.” He realized rather quickly that he didn’t quite feel qualified to analyze it properly, but he was probably not all that off.    
  
“I don’t like that the freak is using religious imagery, especially after finding that note… Crazy cultists is the last thing I want inside here,” he continued, keeping his voice rather low. 

“Anyway-... we try to avoid the psychopath, and just… Find a way out. If there are ways in from Union, there should, assumably, somehow, be ways out. Don’t you think? There should be a link back to Union somewhere.”   
  
He looked around again, and found that the only other exists from the large room they found themselves in was a pair of elevators, and almost on cue, the right one opened up, lighting up. Great… Experimentally, he walked over to the left one, and tried to get it to work, but it seemed that it wouldn’t.    
  
He awaited Ruvik, and then stepped into the elevator, sighing, as he looked over the floor alternatives, there were a whole bunch of them. He immediately pressed the entrance floor, marked out in a red, while the other buttons were black, just hoping that there would be an exit; they had nothing to go on, so they had to go on somewhat common sense.    
  
For a moment, he glanced around and then over at his partner, “heh, I don’t mind elevators so much I guess… they were the second safest places in your head.” When one considered it, it was borderline ridiculous. He had lost count of times, back in Beacon, when he had escaped from danger into an elevator. The only time he hadn’t managed to, was when Ruvik had ripped the elevator piece apart, throwing a fit about finding out that Sebastian once had been married… something that really was just a sweet memory, at that point. The likelihood of something happening while they were inside the moving elevator seemed rather low, and thus, he leaned over towards his partner and whispered in his ear, “yours, to do with, as you please.” He sounded amused, rather than suggestive, but pronounced the words very similar to the original line he was making a play on, and leaned in to place a kiss on the man’s cheek; even a playful bite on the neck would be pointless at a neck that wouldn’t feel it. They both needed this, he could get well needed comfort, and so could his partner. Remembering Ruvik in his more endearing moments, or the more amusing ones, was a welcome relief in the stressful situation they found themselves in. 

Right, back to focus. “Just be prepared to move out and away as fast as you can, we don’t know what’s out th-... What.” Right then, Sebastian noticed that the elevator was, despite the instructions it had been given, going past the entrance floor, all the way down to the cellar… well fuck.

To his great relief, there was no immediate visible threat as the elevator doors opened. Instead, they got out into a storage area, with closed of boxes of metal fence, suggesting them to be storage areas. There were what looked like furniture pieces under white fabrics, but the red stains made Sebastian feel incredibly uncomfortable, altogether. He signalled Ruvik to be careful and silent as well, as Sebastian opted the sneak. He found a way forward with a hole in the metal fence, and soon got to find…. Oh God.    
  
There were bodies, covered in white sheets to only make their naked legs, with blood dripping down, visible, and they were hanging by nooses at the neck, heads also covered by the sheet, from the ceiling. Unlike that Rebirth thing, this was just so… down to Earth normal, straight forward. This wasn’t even artistic, Hell, it was just sadistic and disgusting. He could rather easily tell, as he shone the small flashlight he had found in his office replica on them, that they were likely the bodies of younger women, due to the size of the feet, but he didn’t want to inspect them any closer, he had no time. They seemed to be collectively thin and dainty in shape, but maybe that just simply made sense with the sick artist’s taste, who knew. He didn’t speak, but he looked clearly disgusted and uncomfortable, as he proceeded ,past the corpses, to the wall straight ahead, that had a huge eye motive, painted in red, which seemed to be a dead end. He turned back, and suddenly saw a camera, old fashioned like the earlier ones, straight ahead, and he was rather positive that it hadn’t been there, previously. He sighed and walked back to it, opting Ruvik to follow him, so that they could inspect the piece of equipment; it didn’t even seem on. As he stepped behind it and looked through it, however, he suddenly stepped back again and looked up in shock, realizing that the hanged corpses had moved into a straight line, illuminating a door on the other side. What the Hell…. What was this supposed to mean? Was the camera just there to prepare for a photo? Still, now they had another way forward. Out of sheer discomfort with the situation, he opted from not walking in the line the corpses now created, to the door, but rather behind them, instead, as he slowly approached it. He opened it, and only had a chance to flinch back for half a second, before a camera flash blinded him, and all of a sudden, he was standing in front of a wall with a much larger eye painted on it, turning around to find that they were in a completely different storage room then, altogether… His heart was racing, and he felt immense relief that Ruvik was still there, and that he wasn’t hurt anything. Now the psycho was just playing games with them. “What the Hell…? Did you see that? Fuck, we should get out of here…” He was getting an increasingly dreadful feeling that something was about to happen if they stayed. “The bastard is toying with us…”    
  


  
**Ruvik:**   
“The sign says ‘Rebirth,’ referring to the angelic figure lifting the mortal bodies into a new light and life-.... Maybe, something like that. It’s just Christian bullshit,” his partner responded to the inquiry. 

Ruvik glanced at said sign, and then at the floating female figure in the center, if he had been able to, he would have furrowed his brows as he listened to the explanation, as he was very skeptic about the whole idea. “...I see. Religion.” Was the only statement he offered on the matter, his only experience with the concept was a negative one, and from what little he had seen of it the past two years, it seemed foolish at best. People that were dissatisfied with their life, who needed comfort or support, or simply didn’t want to face the real world for what it was, turned to religion. They turned to a higher power that would make everything alright if one just believed hard enough. Perhaps the struggle to be a better person was not that faulty in its basic form, yet when it came from a place of fear or guilt, it really was nothing but manipulation, in his eyes. 

“I don’t like that the freak is using religious imagery, especially after finding that note… Crazy cultists is the last thing I want inside here,” Sebastian continued, keeping his voice rather low. The scarred man nodded in response, finding it to be the better response than voicing a reply. 

Sebastian briefly spoke about an exit, something that they also agreed on, thus making their goal before they continued towards the elevator that had opened for them. Ruvik teleported inside of it, after getting the signal that it was clear. 

He didn’t mind elevators, they were easy to use and put very little strain on a wounded body, meaning that he could get a lot further without getting so tired. It had been helpful when he worked for Mobius and didn’t have to walk up and down stairs. It seemed Seb shared his fondness for the transportation method, as he suddenly began to speak fondly of it, about the time he had used elevators in the earlier STEM. 

Upon its mention, Ruvik did recall a somewhat embarrassing memory, connected to the time he had believed the detective to be using him, when he already had a wife, which wasn’t exactly what had happened, at all, especially since the scientist was the one who had bargained for the physical contact and sexual contact, in the first place. He had made some rather embarrassing mistakes, in rage proclaiming a lot of things, that he would not have been able to say to the man’s face, these years later. As if Sebastian could read his mind, the latino man leaned in and whispered in his ear. 

He gave him a look as if he was trying to make the detective’s head explode, but they were both aware that he was really only embarrassed about it. Sebastian had that way to his flirting, where he found a lot more amusement in being a little teasing, rather than romantic, something that fit the scientist a lot better than the other man trying to actually be openly, romantically, affectionate. Yet, it tended to happen at times when he really wasn’t prepared for it, making it so that his face tended to reflect the embarrassment that he felt. It wasn’t a bad thing, he did enjoy the aspect of romance a lot more, as it was playing on intelligent and psychological, a connection and memories, rather than blurting out strange statements with unclear symbolism to them. As he got a kiss on the cheek, he recalled that he had actually bit Sebastian back then, and that the answer to his embarrassing act of possession, had been the man informing him that there was a time and place to be kinky. Ruvik teleported half a foot away from the other man, giving him a huff in reply, alongside an avoidance of eye contact, as he always did when the other man had won one of their disagreements or domestic discussions. Ruvik did tend to win most of them, but Sebastian had his good days too. 

When the elevator did stop, Ruvik exited, but remained in place outside of them, he did try to hunch down but his body didn’t allow him the needed movements without it being painful and uncomfortable. He continued to wait for the signals from Sebastian, that allowed him to move over to the man’s position. 

They found a collection of bodies, hanging from the ceiling, covered in white sheets, something that seemed nothing but cruelty towards the deceased people it had been done to. There were not only one or two of them, but something around twenty or more. It did not unsettle Ruvik as much as it did the man next to him, but he ended up not understanding why it was even needed at all. Clearly, these had all been real people, with real lives, seemingly murdered with the sole purpose of hanging them up like this. If this was the state where the female victims ended up, judging from the smaller frames and feet, then had all the men been captured in that state of non-death that repeated forever inside of the time box? Perhaps, this state of absolute death was preferable to the neverending one? When he realized that he was comparing what might be the worst way to die, he stopped to think about it, he couldn’t afford to let his focus wander. 

After inspecting the wall with the eye, Sebastian turned, signing for him to follow. The man was heading towards a camera, something that made Ruvik very uncomfortable, seeing as it had not been there before, but also because the device had far too much power inside whatever place they currently found themselves in. He moved behind the detective, suddenly feeling a shift around him. It wasn’t as strong as it had been inside of his STEM, but it did feel as if the world had throbbed, only for it to then have changed after the shift. 

When he looked again, the corpses were aligned in a row and a door had appeared. He watched as the other man moved over towards it, he himself staying back until he was given a signal to move again. Sebastian reached the door and Ruvik saw him flinch back as the sound of a camera flash echoed in the room. He thought his heart was going to stop out of fear, as he realized the possibility of the other man ending up stuck in a time loop, without him having any way of getting him out of it. 

However, no such thing had happened, Sebastian was alright, and he turned towards him. The man spoke words that he didn’t manage to comprehend through his relief. Ruvik teleported to him, a few steps in front of him and then moved the last steps on his own, allowing their bodies to clash together in a, from his side, stiff hug. It felt horrible to not be able to feel all of the man anymore, to just be able to vaguely feel the fabric against his skin and the faint traces of warmth that Sebastian’s body gave him. Yet, he held him hard, pressing his face against the other’s chest. “Are you… alright?” His voice sounded thick and strained, as he was holding back from letting the emotions free. 

  
  


**Sebastian:**

No, he was not alright.    
  
First and foremost, that was a moment where he was certain he would die, right there and then. His heart still felt caught in his throat. It took a moment extra for him to realize that he could have, and would have, ended up in one of those looped spaces, and that psycho had literally chosen not to do it. Now this was just direct fucking mockery, beyond being toyed with. He could have killed the detective, but the man didn’t. The after shock was always pretty bad, knowing that one’s life could have ended in that exact moment, and he would have left Ruvik alone in there, and left Lily alone, too.    
  
Luckily, his partner provided a rather good distraction by desperately hugging him, evidently having realized just how near death the detective had been, a moment ago. Even in that sense, being strong for someone else worked better for him than calming himself for his own sake. Needing to calm and comfort Ruvik helped his mind calm a lot faster than it would have otherwise. His partner’s choice of action was even kind of similar to his own reaction that one time, long ago, when Myra had gotten seriously injured and just managed to get away from a life threatening situation, making Sebastian realize that he could have lost her, right there; that was a little before he proposed to the woman. He knew what it felt to feel that panic, of losing someone important.

“.... I’m alright. Fuck. He just chose not to kill me. He is toying with us.”    
  
He felt the need to state it all out loud, making sure that they were on the same page, besides, they seemed entirely alone in the room they were in, right then, he kept an eye out, even with Ruvik in his arms. After a few more moments, he let go of the other, and started looking around again. It was a smaller room, still with storage areas and fences, and it had a huge pile of storaged things in the middle, making for a decent hiding spot if anything would be there, but there wasn’t any path forward, not that he could see; it honestly just looked like a dead end, altogether. He wouldn’t mind climbing the fences if it came to that, it was just a little annoying.    
  
Spotting the very large mirror at the end of the room made him way more anxious again. The whole place so far had been an awful haunted house ride, and mirrors were 101 material for scaring someone. Even more so when the huge piece wasn’t stored away, but fitted perfectly in the space on the wall, between two pillars. However, he realized that following the pattern until then, that mirror was likely something akin to their way out, or most likely something, if things were going to keep following the same pattern. There was something small taped onto the mirror, looking like a photograph, and yeah, more than anything, that felt like an obvious trap. Fuck, he really needed to be sensible about this, and while he didn’t want to put Ruvik at any risk at all, he sighed and forced himself to think sensibly. “Could you check what that is?” He pointed at the mirror and photo, “just, get out of there as quick as possible, it really looks like a trap, and he seems to be out to get me, who can’t teleport.” There was no way he’d just approach that photo and mirror, like a little puppet going through with the show, just after the psycho had been right in his face, able to end him just like that, that would be insane.    
  
Of course, Sebastian had been right about that trap, but he had in no way anticipated that it would be that bad. No one could have prepared them for that bad. Suddenly, everything was just like Beacon again, as a huge creature crashed through the mirror, something that looked like a gorey mess of stitched together bodies, with a bunch of creepy female heads on it, lots of hair, and a huge saw blade on one arm, spinning away. That was… not as scary as it could have been. It wasn’t like Beacon, it wasn’t like the nightmare image of Ruvik’s older sister. It looked much more suitable for some shitty horror movie.    
  
What did not differ at all, however, was the level of danger, as the creature seemed more than enough blood thirsty to want to kill them. The mirror had been a trick mirror, in some way, and opened up the pathway forward. It was all the more easy for Ruvik to get out of the way, and it very quickly became evident that the creature was out for Sebastian, as it chased after him, at any chance to get to him. There were way too many things going on for him to properly think it through, rather than just focusing on not getting killed, as he ran away from the thing, but even he realized, upon finding the open air vent and ladder right below it, that his escape route had been planned ahead by someone, there just wasn’t any time to feel unsettled, because even in the air vent, as he tried to get out, he needed to avoid the damned saw blade. Somehow, he managed out, and dropped down in an entirely red… laboratory? Giant kitchen? It was hard to tell, he just didn’t have the time to look at it, really, as he found the exit, or presumably so, as there were a couple of large white doors at the end of the corridor. The second he spotted Ruvik he gestured for the man to hurry over there, as he himself sneaked the best he could, hoping that the creature wouldn’t come back.    
  
… Of course she came back. She appeared right behind him, forcing him to run with all his might towards the exit, which, by the design of the place itself, he should probably have figured out. Still, he needed to get out, there was no time for stopping, it really was like Beacon all over; stopping meant death.    
  
Sebastian barely had time to comprehend the psycho in the suit appearing in between him and the exit, throwing something at him, he probably would have ducked better, and not ended up with a knife lodged into his shoulder. Panic riled up worse, as he fell over from the nearly stunning pain. Fuck, fuck, no. Not like that. Not so quickly. The creature was up in his face in mere moments, and instead of just sawing him in half, it decided to lift him up by the throat. His only option was crazy, but there was no other way. With a pained gasp and some struggle, he forced the large army knife out of his shoulder, and used it to slice at the monster, right over one of the faces, seeing the blade was exceptionally sharp, just enough to make it give out a pained screech and drop him. There wasn’t time to think, just adrenaline and survival instinct, as he forced himself through the light of the doorway, getting away in last second.    
  
He fell right down onto the somewhat soft surface of a carpet, creating a cloud of dust around himself, before having the chance to even think, looking behind himself in panic, only to find a dusty looking normal window, of a normal room, in a normal house. Upon looking around he found that the place looked like any other, slightly abandoned, room in a house or apartment somewhere, and while dusty, the outside of the window wasn’t black, but rather, had the sight of sky and trees, suggesting that they were not in a black empty space…. Had they gotten out? If they had gotten out, then the man in the suit had clearly provided him means of escape, and seemingly… left the blade too. Sebastian looked down into his hand, at the army knife, before sighing and getting up on his knees. He was relieved beyond belief that Ruvik was safe, but it made a lot of sense, as getting away was the easiest possible thing for his partner, being able to teleport and all. He realized that he was bleeding from his shoulder, but strangely, he was still able to somewhat move his arm, which… didn’t make that much sense with how deep the wound should have gotten, if the blade lodged into him. Not to mention, looking at the blade, there was no blood on it… huh. Well, it wasn’t real, but fuck, it felt really fucking real right then, and he let out a pained groan. He tried to get up on his feet.    
  


 

**Ruvik:**   
Even if it had so clearly been a trap, for all the things he had expected to happen, a giant female with a chain blade for an arm, bursting through the mirror with a manic laughter, was somewhat unexpected. Unlike Sebastian, Ruvik never had to face the manifestations of his mind in a life and death situation, meaning that this was the first time he truly stood in front of a true monster, one that he couldn’t control or defend himself against. Yet, with Sebastian’s earlier warnings and guidelines, he was able to keep his control, instead teleporting away from the spot where he had been, back to Sebastian. 

It quickly became evident that she was hunting after Sebastian, as she seemed to go straight for the place where one could expect the man to be hiding, Ruvik briefly considered if that was a sign of intelligence or if she was merely moving on instinct. He could easily teleport out of her way, but he didn’t allow himself to move too far, instead remaining close enough to see if he was needed but far enough so that he was not in immediate danger. 

The chase lead them to a big, red room, that looked much like a kitchen to the scarred man. He looked around, there was only one path for Seb to go to, seeing as he couldn’t easily get behind all the tables that blocked the other door. It was too open, it felt like a trap once more. He saw Sebastian telling him, by using gestures, to get over to it and so he did, reaching out to open the doors but found that they were locked. When he turned back again, moving away from the doors, he found that the creature had burst in through one of the walls, both her and Sebastian coming rushing towards him. 

Was this… it? The door was locked, this was where the chase lead them, the illusion of hope in the door right ahead, while death was on their heel. What should he do? Wait for Sebastian so they could at least be together at the end? Should he run further, teleport away and… do what? Stay lost in this part of STEM forever, until he was finally found and killed? 

As he stood waiting, watching the monster and Seb come running, he heard a completely unexpected sound. Turning his head, he saw that the doors had opened, and that the man in the blue suit had exited. He didn’t have time to realize exactly what had happened, but he did see the man throw something towards the detective. In the few short seconds between the door opening and the man throwing a knife, Ruvik had time to see his face. The man wasn’t looking at him and he had most of his dark brown hair moved over the right side of his face, which was the side that the scientist stood on. From what he could see, the man looked older, his mouth was relatively thin with wrinkles all around it, his face was long and his features sharp, in a way that made them seem somewhat softened by age. He had a prominent nose, the one type that was somewhat buckled, yet Ruvik was unable to see his eyes or the entire other part of his face. The man turned around to leave, and for a brief moment, the two of them looked each other in the eye. The man’s face, which had previously wearing a smug look of satisfaction, turned somewhat surprised just before he disappeared in a sharp cloud of blue smoke. 

Ruvik heard Sebastian say the words “no...No!” Behind him, making him turn in time to witness the man pull a knife out of his shoulder and then slice himself free from the monster’s grasp, by slashing her face. As soon as the man was able to move again, when it was clear that he was free, Ruvik moved inside the white room. 

Sebastian fell right down onto the ground, landing on the surface of a carpet, creating a cloud of dust around himself, Ruvik, on the other hand, found himself standing in a bedroom. Straight ahead was a bed, to the left was a desk and to the right were a collection of low bookcases, and behind them was a wall. The female monster was gone. He could see outside through the window, the observation was enough to make him satisfied with the conclusion that they were finally in Union. 

He turned directly towards Sebastian, who had managed to turn around enough for him to lay on his back at least. “Stay still.” Ruvik wasn’t aware of how much of a demand that sounded like. He moved over and started to pull at the harness that the detective wore, quickly getting it off before Sebastian could stop him. After he had gotten it off and placed it to the side, he began trying to remove the other’s shirt. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \------- Facts & Headcanons -------
> 
> Religion: Just know that the very negative thoughts which both Sebastian and Ruvik share on the topic of religion is specific for the characters and their way of thinking, and not meant as criticizm of religious people in real life. Ruvik has incredibly bad experiences with religion, and Sebastian has, through the games and canons of him, showed everything but someone who would have faith in a higher power. 
> 
> Stefano toying with Sebastian: The only way to make the very singular path of all of Stefano's segments make sense, would be if he was letting Sebastian get away, or at least have the chance of it. Aside from how the intro sequence in his world hints on this, the fact that the room with the 'Sebastian Castellanos' exhibition sign is visible, but locked away, shows that the man has other plans for him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruvik had ended up on his knees behind the other man, now looking at his skin. He had seen Sebastian naked many times at this point, yet now, after all the near death experiences they had, the man looked absolutely perfect. He wanted nothing more than to stay, wrap his arms around him and tell him how much he had feared losing him, how glad he was that they had made it out okay, and that he wouldn’t have any idea how to move on if Sebastian had died back there.
> 
> Yet, he did none of those things, instead getting up and disappeared by teleporting away.

**Sebastian:**

The detective barely got a chance to think, at all, before his partner was over him, not even giving the detective a chance to stand up. Sebastian’s shoulder was stinging badly, and he was a little too fucking disoriented from the near death experience, to resist when the man forced the harness off him, seemingly about to pull at his clothes.   
  
He understood that Ruvik would be distressed, more so than himself, but Hell, they couldn’t just stop here, having no idea where they really were, after something like that just happening.   
  
“Hey, ugh-..” Fuck his shoulder hurt when he moved. “We can’t just stop here, we have no idea whether it’s safe,” Sebastian grunted out, somewhat pained.   
  
Honestly, he had been through way worse in Beacon, being chased by, and hurt by, giant monsters wasn’t really new to him, disturbing and traumatizing as it had been. In comparison to many others, this one with the chainsaw had been slow and clumsy, and even easier to avoid, even if it had been a very bad situation and huge risk in itself. Of course, he had seen the man in the suit appearing, but too many things had happened for him to really notice the knife until it was too late. Dread and fear of death very quickly exchanged for anger. The scenario itself was fucking obvious, if the man had wanted him dead, he would be dead right then; the fucker had either enjoyed the gamble on the detective’s life, or actually let him get away, after hurting him, he could possibly even be testing Sebastian. What the fuck was going on.   
  
He tried to push his partner aside and get up; he realised that he needed medical attention, sure, but he had been through worse, and he didn’t feel like there was any time to stop before they could prove their safety. “We don’t even know if we are in Union.”   


 

  
**Ruvik:**   
He felt a sting of anger when he was told to stop in his caring for the other’s shoulder, something that was clearly reflected in his eyes when he looked at the man’s face for a brief second. Ruvik slowly stood up, only to repeat his earlier words, “stay still.”

He teleported to the door and pushed it open, finding that it lead through a short corridor to a kitchen. Everything about the place seemed abandoned, the walls were grey, looking as if they might fall apart if pushed. He teleported forward, only to realize that he had missed a door to the right, thus moving back and entered. It was a bathroom, one that might have been luxurious once but now looked broken and dirty, to make certain that they were alone, he teleported closer to the tub to check inside it. It was safe, and so he returned to the kitchen. It was more of a kitchen combined with a living- or dining room, he could see a sofa that had been strangely placed in a corner, next to the actual kitchen part, as well as chairs that had been moved away from the dining table. Everything was dirty or broken, he could see quite a few trash bags lying about as well, which probably added to the unpleasant scent that filled the room.

When he turned towards the door, he noticed something so obvious that it was almost hard to believe he had missed it when he only took a quick glance over the room, there was blood around the door, and a large dried stain in front of it. He teleported over to it for a closer inspection, finding that there was blood on the wall behind a lamp, something that looked almost disconnected to the rest of the blood. Upon looking at that and then turning his attention towards said lamp, he noticed something sticking out under one of the books on the little lamp desk. He moved the book and found a gun, causing a wave of relief to wash over him. Sebastian would appreciate that little discovery. After one more glance at the blood and the door, finding that there was none on the door handle, or any signs that the person or creature that had bled, had made it anywhere further, judging from the blood, Ruvik continued.

The last unchecked room in the house was one that looked untouched at first glance, something that made him think of a smaller, more homely study. There were bookcases filled with volumes of books, as well as a couch and armchairs. He spotted a TV, which lead him to the conclusion that this was the living room and the other was simply a dining room with a couch in it, however curious of a combination that may be.

He made sure that the window was whole and locked, then teleported back to the door and checked if it was locked as well; it wasn’t, so he took a glance outside and then locked it. During the house round, he spotted a syringe on the table. Upon inspection, he found that it was the same type of tool that had appeared inside his STEM, which made it possible, and very likely, that it was something created from Sebastian’s subconscious. Good, it would assist in tricking the man’s mind that it was being restored.

Now that the house was secure, he moved back to Sebastian, appearing outside the room before entering it after making sure that he wouldn’t accidentally teleport into the man, thus killing them both. He had only been gone for a few seconds, having moved through as fast as he could. “The area is secured.” He slowly knelt down to place the gun and the syringe down next to the man, he had intended to get up right away, but realized that something else laid on the floor already. As he picked it up, he realized it was the photo that the psychopath had taken of the latino man, Ruvik hadn’t realized that he had been holding on to it until the point where he dropped it to take care of Sebastian. After pocketing the item, not feeling comfortable with leaving it for anyone to find, he got up again. “Take off your shirt, I will be back.”

He teleported to the bathroom and started to look through it, he located a first aid kit, one that he grabbed and brought along, before finding something clean to put water in, along with clean towels, hidden away in one of the kitchen cabinets, preventing them from being too dusty. He also made sure to wash his hands in the bathroom, after discovering that the water was still working.

Ruvik returned to Sebastian, placing the things down next to him. When the other man had removed his shirt, he began to treat the wound, it had already begun to close up somewhat. This was what he had hoped for, the syringe containments had been able to convince Sebastian’s brain that his wounds had been taken care of, after some more time had passed, where the man’s mind would be distracted with other things, it was very likely that he would forget the wound altogether. Seeing as the man had just pulled the knife out of his shoulder and wielded it without fainting from pain, still staying awake and able to communicate, Sebastian would be fine. He would be fine. They were still alive and Seb would recover.

  


**Sebastian:**   
Sebastian was more than ready to have an argument with his lover, about the fact that they needed to move, immediately, when he saw the glaring stare the man directed at him. What he did not expect was the upcoming instructions followed by Ruvik disappearing off to the door, and within moments, the man was completely gone. Oh-... Yeah, okay, that was a way to go about it too, he supposed. Sebastian supposed that he was a little too used to, as a detective, to always have to be the one to act, it felt so odd to be able to sit back and let his partner do the work, he wouldn’t have let Myra do such a thing, or Joseph for the matter, but Ruvik really was extraordinary, and the fact that he could do things others couldn’t in STEM was undeniable.

He always felt a somewhat stinging sense of guilt and pain when he accidentally thought of Joseph, but it had gotten better with the past few years. The man had been an excellent partner at work, and handled Sebastian surprisingly well on a professional level, back in the somewhat embarrassing days when the detective had borderline refused to get a new partner at work, or at least, had been very negative towards such an idea, in ways he wouldn’t be acting stupid all these years later. Noteworthy, however, was the fact that in the short time he and Ruvik had been put in a similar scenario, it was almost nostalgic, in a sense of the scientist reminding of Joseph in certain aspects, but honestly, Ruvik was even more knowledgeable and able to draw very good conclusions on matters, making him very useful for any sort of investigation, in all this. Ruvik did seem to be a bit of a natural at the detective work, probably based on the fact that he was able to draw intelligent conclusions, and able to put two and two together, which was basically the very foundation for being a good detective. Besides, in the old STEM, Joseph had more often gotten in the way or gotten them both in trouble and risk, rather than having been of actual help. He wouldn’t need to save Ruvik the way he needed to save Joseph, back then.   
  
Sebastian didn’t quite feel calm yet, he didn’t want to be lured into false safety, but within mere moments, Ruvik returned to him, informing him in an almost laughably police-like way of wording that they seemed safe; given Sebastian’s earlier thought trail, he couldn’t help but to smile, but he also felt relief that they didn’t seem to be in immediate danger, and thus, actually didn’t get up or move. Even better relief came from Ruvik seemingly having found a gun, and one of those syringes that had kept him going and alive in the last STEM, and after all the explanations on the topic, Sebastian did suspect that the items either came from his own mind or Ruvik’s. Well, perhaps not the gun, a gun in an American, somewhat rural, little town, was more than natural. With only a nearly inaudible gruff noise on pain, he grabbed the healing syringe and used it, already feeling better, within a few seconds, even if he didn’t feel perfectly restored. Further, he brought up the gun and checked just how many bullets it stored, and there seemed to be eight, which wasn’t bad, at least for a start. Hopefully they would find more bullets, and honestly, he suspected they would.   
  
He hadn’t quite gotten to removing his shirt until Ruvik returned, but did just that, letting the other check on the wound. He looked at his partner, with a faint smile on his face, realizing once more that he was relieved beyond any measure that he had Ruvik with him, in this Hell.

“So, where are we? Do you think we’re actually in Union now?” He started asking, realizing that they probably should speak. “I imagined the place to be less rundown than this, seeing it’s not real.”   
  
“Did you find anything noteworthy? Are we actually alone?”

“... I sure as fuck hope we don’t see that one again, but if we do, I definitely need a better firearm than this, we should keep a lookout for better weapons.”   
  
It was evident that he was the most focused on continuing, with psychos like that, and strange monsters, appearing, he did want to find his daughter as soon as possible, if it was true that she was in this mess..   


 

  
**Ruvik:**   
It felt very good to do something, to not just be an observe, instead being able to work with his hands, alongside his mind. Talking was not so bad either, although he did not let this distract him from his direct focus. “We are, without doubt, in Union now. Everything feels different, I hardly think one person alone could create two such drastically different places on his own. Not to mention, I can smell things in this place. Back in that, mh… space, I couldn’t feel the scent of anything.” He finished washing most of the blood off, not trusting the thing enough to let it directly soak the man’s blood from the wound, thus placing the rag to the side, grabbing the first aid kit, instead. “This place smells unpleasant, the kitchen and the dining rooms are filled with trash bags.” He opened the kit and looked inside.

“It’s not so strange when you consider that this is what someone would expect a house to become if it was left alone for too long. I’ve looked outside and this particular house is next to a bigger road which I would guess leads to the town shown on the photos in your office.” He began with placing a bigger cotton pad against the man’s shoulder, leaving it there as he reached for the bandages.

“There is blood all over by the door, but it doesn’t make logical sense, with the way it’s been splattered. There was no blood outside the door and no corpse inside of the house, it just seems to be… blood. I cannot tell how it got there.” He gestured for the man to sit up as he wrapped him together tightly.

He finished his work, nodding to the other’s suggestion. “I shall do my best. It seems foolish to hope that she won’t find us again, but… I hope she won’t.”

Ruvik had ended up on his knees behind the other man, now looking at his skin. He had seen Sebastian naked many times at this point, yet now, after all the near death experiences they had, the man looked absolutely perfect. He wanted nothing more than to stay, wrap his arms around him and tell him how much he had feared losing him, how glad he was that they had made it out okay, and that he wouldn’t have any idea how to move on if Sebastian had died back there.

Yet, he did none of those things, instead getting up and disappeared by teleporting away. He washed his hands in the bathroom, then proceeded to shake them carefully, to get more of the water away as he couldn’t locate any towels. Upon coming back to the bedroom, he looked around by the desk and had the luck of finding a backpack. After exploring the content and removing a collection of disinteresting documents by simply dropping them onto the ground, he turned towards Sebastian again. “I know how much I am able to carry without damaging myself, you will be in greater danger if you are to carry around things on your back, so I will do it for you.” He appeared by the first aid kit and placed it down in the backpack before looking at his partner with help of getting the bag onto his own back.

  


**Sebastian:**   
Well, the pain didn’t last very long, already in the older STEM, his mind had somehow gathered that he was getting better faster, and had more energy to spare, than he would have out in anything that was real. It hurt a little, but he could evidently move his arm properly, and the healing syringe, together with Ruvik’s care, seemed to be more than enough to make him feel, at least physically, restored.

He let out a relieved breath when Ruvik explained that they were definitely in Union; Sebastian didn’t automatically feel as certain as his partner about such a thing, given that STEM was… a mess. Still, Ruvik seemed to be right, and the man was usually right.   
  
“Right, so… Union is supposed to feel like a real place, right? If this place is so off it might actually be abandoned, if it’s not in the city itself? I’m gonna need to take a look around, I want to know if it’s just this place, or more of Union,” he said, and got up, proceeding to get properly dressed again. They were kind of running out of time, but at least, they seemed to be in a more stable place; Ruvik was entirely right, this place smelled of dust, and seemed completely real, there was no eerie uncanny valley effect where certain senses were missing, such as the smell of all the gore and corpses, they had seen in that sick fucking place.   
  
Once more, his partner proved to make complete sense, and Sebastian couldn’t help but let a weak smile spread over his lips. In all of this dread, it really meant something that his partner, who had in his previous life, with all the justification in the world for it, been very selfish, was going out of his way to make sure that they’d manage this task. It wasn’t entirely uncalled for, they were both aware that they had no choice in the matter, but the level of effort still meant something.   
  
He helped the other to put on the backpack, well aware that rather than hurting the other, Ruvik would likely not feel very much of the thing altogether, except the weights on his shoulders, and some parts on his right side back

“Thank you;” there were a bunch of things he really should thank the other for, and rather than listing them, or wasting time, a simple and sincere ‘thank you’ seemed to be the best option to go with.   
  
He finally moved out of the room, and actually set on exploring the place. Of course, Ruvik was once more right, the place was a lot more real, in its sense of smell, that was frankly rather disgusting, and it looked rundown and abandoned. Different from his partner, he looked around and tried to place when people last lived there, how many they were, and what kind of people they were. There really seemed to be a house where one, just maybe two, people lived, and there were no signs of anything that would indicate there having been younger children, or children at all, which felt like a relief; Sebastian sure as fuck hoped that Mobius was above using young children as test subjects for the inhabitants, but then again, he wouldn’t put any faith in that organisation. 

“There was probably just one residence here, male, somewhat young adult, judging by the clothing left here,” he informed Ruvik, while looking around.   
  
Yet another thing the burn victim had been right about was the incredibly strange placing of the blood, without a corpse. He looked at the scene for a while, “yeah… the only logical sense I can make of this is if someone put the side table and lamp there afterwards… This doesn’t make sense. Then again, could someone like that psycho just rob a body from this place, maybe?”   
  
Looking around more, he took a chance to look out more windows, and yeah, it looked like they were out in the woods somewhere, hopefully near Union. Further evidence to such a claim came when he found a journal with very neat handwriting. “I think whoever lived here might have worked for Mobius, pretending not to, and this really makes it sound like people have turned Haunted,” he commented, holding up the part of the journal which stated something about how things, and seemingly people had changed. “We better keep a look out for those, I am assuming you can’t kill them with your mind?” It was partly mockery, and maybe a little less serious of a question, but who knew, maybe there were hopes. Inside Ruvik’s own world, he had been able to kill those things left and right, with a blink of an eye.   
  
“I hate to think of it, but I think I’m kind of fine handling them, we should just be really careful, if we’re in a cityscape, to not be swarmed by too many.”

Another thing he noticed as he looked around made him sigh. “Yeah okay, is this just people’s heads messing with this place? The curtains are decaying to a point of rotting and falling apart, that takes way longer than two weeks; everything in here is in a different state of decay, the time doesn’t match up at all.”   
  
It was probably time to go, after a search he realized that he wouldn’t likely get anything else that was really useful out of the place. It was worth a try, the better prepared they could be, the better advantage they had. Hence, after checking the area through one of the windows, he unlocked and opened the door to the front porch, finding that they really did seem to be alone. “I wish Kidman had at least given a map of this Union place-...” He suddenly realized something and brought the comradio up to his lips.   
  
“Kidman?”   
  
After just a single moment, he nearly had to pull the thing a bit away from his face, when Kidman’s voice nearly shouted a reply; “Sebastian! Where have you been?! We lost you-..” Yeah no, they didn’t have time for this.   
  
“We don’t know, but it sure as Hell wasn’t a quaint little town. There’s something bad happening here, Kidman. Baker is dead; the killer is running about doing things that are-... things that shouldn’t be possible. “ How the fuck did one start explaining to someone who hadn’t just witnessed it all or didn’t understand STEM at all. “It’s like Beacon all over again. What the Hell did you just send us into?” Sebastian probably sounded angrier than he meant to. He also realised that he didn’t know just how much he wanted to tell Mobius, especially given that they were ultimately working against their two captives.   
  
The response he received was rather meek, almost apologetic, “... I don’t know. We’re in the dark out here.” He could hear the sound of her taking a deep breath, on the other end, before Kidman continued; “Baker was the team leader; if he’s dead, that doesn’t bode well for the rest of them… Keep searching around. The more info you gather, the more I will be able to help you.”

  
“Yeah, sure,” was really all he could muster, but upon turning the device off again, he immediately turned to Ruvik. “They completely lost our signal in that place, it seems entirely closed off.”   
  
He walked off the porch and out to the main road, finding that he was enjoying the light rain and somewhat late spring temperature. The road to one side was entirely blocked off, and it continued the other way, meaning that they really just had one way to go forward.   
  
While walking, still holding his gun and being somewhat alert, but realizing that they seemed very alone right then, he spoke to Ruvik. “That guy in the suit… he has to be one of the test subjects, right? Could they just take care of him on the outside, if they found him?” It was worth asking, at least. He wouldn’t want Mobius to do something stupid, based on a machine they didn’t understand, just because he told them too much information.   
  
A car had crashed on the roadside in a somewhat near distance, and upon getting close to it, all they found was a seemingly mid-aged male corpse, completely ruined, with flies everywhere inside the car. Great. “Poor son of a bitch…” Sebastian stated, out loud. “Does that mean he is dead on the outside now? Are Mobius aware that people are dying and just not telling us?” It seemed like the boss would say anything to get what he wanted, anyway, and Sebastian would not put it beyond them to act as if they weren’t aware of this, to further convince him to agree to it all. The car had a huge splatter of blood all over it, making it evident that the car crashed into something living. “Do you think they have wildlife in this simulation? Something or someone losing this much blood shouldn’t be able to get up and walk, and the shape of the stain suggests that the body was laying on the car when the blood started drying up. Nothing has been dragging it away, but there’s smaller stains there on the ground, so I am just going to assume that something that shouldn’t have gotten up did get up again.” Ugh… he really had a bad feeling about it all.

 

 

 **Ruvik:**   
He was not prepared to find so much enjoyment in watching Sebastian work, it was very interesting to simply observe the way we went about things, to listen to the little noises and the louder statements the man made as he had discovered something. Altogether, it seemed as if this was the man’s true element, where he thrived and could easily deduce a great many things which Ruvik would not have bothered to note as important. The burn scarred man ended up observing the other man, mostly acting as a supportive ball plank to bounce ideas off, when the detective had found them.

“Mn. It really does not make sense unless someone took the body away from here, yet moving it by lifting would at least leave a trail of blood. It would make more sense if the psychopath had managed to teleport them away, which sounds correct in theory but isn’t that easy in practice. Moving an object requires understanding of it, I can teleport myself without trouble but if I was to bring… Mh.” He suddenly stopped half way through, looking down at the ground and then up at Sebastian again. “It is possible that I have over thought it, that the reason I find it borderline impossible to teleport something with me is because I believe it to be necessary to understand the compound of what the item in question is. Perhaps, it’s not required, only the awareness that the item is there when it’s teleported.” After speaking, he disappeared, appearing at the other end of the room, still with the backpack on. “...Seems I did over think, in this particular matter...”

The next time he was addressed was when Sebastian asked him about the Haunted, having handled him the notebook from the most likely hidden Mobius agent. Ruvik looked up from the book, giving him the skeptical stare that he didn’t quite manage to pull off without eyebrows. “Sebastian. When you have small, unpleasant, thoughts pop up inside your head, that you rather push away than think about, do you consider such a thing a hard feat, to simply shut them down?” He handed the man the book so that it could be placed in his backpack. “I’m afraid you will have to be in charge of taking them down with your weapons, rather than I.”

After a little more investigation, they were about to leave, but Sebastian stopped to have a chat with their contact on the outside. Ruvik listened in while looked around outside of the house, simply standing in one place to observe the terrain, as he could feel the cooling, refreshing scent of the rain, he couldn’t help but long for the time when he and Leslie had began to synch up inside of STEM, allowing him to feel for the first time in twenty years. A strange, new feeling came to him as well, as he realized that he was actually missing the presence of the mental patient in the back of his head. When Sebastian finished speaking, he was able to confirm that they had been unable to locate their signal when inside an unfamiliar mindscape.

Together, they walked down the concrete road, something that allowed the scarred man to readjust to walking in this shape again, however uncomfortable it was to him. Sebastian brought up a question that seemed absolutely obvious to him but that he realized wasn’t to his partner. “He is definitely a test subject, but disconnecting him will not in any way change what he is inside of here. If something was to happen to your body right now, in the real world, would you feel it? You would not, because your mind is no longer connected to the experiences and awareness of that body. Your mind, as it is now, as been… uploaded into STEM,” he paused briefly to find the right word, “just as I was able to move into Leslie, so is, in theory, any other mind capable of doing, meaning that the body does not serve as anything but a vessel to the mind. The mind inside here, isn’t aware of the fact that it needs a vessel, as it is already provided by the subject’s own awareness of self. Just as you wouldn’t be aware if someone hurt your body in the real world, the subject would not be aware that it’s body had been disconnected at all.” He stopped to glance at the other man, wanting to see if he was following him, thus adding one last comment on the subject to make it as clear as possible. “The only certain way to kill something connected to STEM, is by killing it inside of STEM. The mind lives on, even without the body, even if it stays trapped inside of this place.”

They came to a halt outside a broken, crashed car with a corpse inside, prompting for a stop and investigation. Ruvik stayed back, keeping an eye out to make sure that they weren’t surprised by something, while Sebastian checked the vehicle. “Yes, dead inside STEM, dead outside of STEM. It’s not too complicated. Mobius are beyond doubt aware that people are dying inside of STEM unless…” He stopped, and then sighed. “Unless they don’t know how to properly read the vitals of the machines, meaning that they would think the Haunted to be alive still, as their minds are, in some ways, still functional. As they could not read our signals inside of the psychopath’s mindscape, they might still believe that those people are alive. Ugh.” He accidentally let out a very Sebastian-like noise, causing him to feel somewhat embarrassed over himself. It wasn’t very professional-sounding.

He shook his head at the question about wildlife. “No, nothing big. Smaller animals like birds, cats and evidently flies, yes, to add to the illusion of this being real life, but nothing big that would actually require effort on their part.” He turned to look at the car once again, nodding at the man’s deduction. “You seem to be correct. Let us hope that it was a Haunted and not something bigger that collided with it. We should be prepared that there might be more of them, the closer we get to the town.” To someone else, he might have sounded indifferent or even cold, in only acknowledging that there was a possible infestation of the Haunted inside Union, but both men knew that they didn’t have the time to worry about other people that they did not know, inside of STEM.

  


 

**Sebastian:**

“Great… I might tell Kidman about it if we actually find any Haunted,” he stated, at last. They were both evidently already weary of the whole situation, and things hadn’t even started yet. Besides, he didn’t like the idea of providing Mobius too much information, seeing they would have a little too much authority on making decisions, based on the information they would gather.   
  
“I’m prepared, you know, I’ve done this shit before. Are you?”   
  
It really was true. He might feel terrible about it all afterwards, but right then he was far too busy with the task of solving the problem, and when he was in the middle of the fire of it all, there was no time to waste on being bothered by it. He had killed Haunted before, he had killed plenty of them, and he knew there was no real going back, once their minds had been ruined, as Ruvik previously had stated to him, hence, there was no time for or point in worrying about them.   
  
He did expect his partner to be able to handle everything they’d face inside this STEM to some degree, but he couldn’t be absolutely certain. Ruvik had, back in Beacon, been completely safe and never once had to fight back against the dangerous monstrosities. Sebastian sure as fuck hoped that the other would be fine, at least, he did very well with that weird fucking chainsaw monster.   
  
They continued on, light breeze and soft rain on their faces, although, it was probably only Sebastian that truly felt it against his skin. This STEM really was well made, it felt incredibly fucking real. For a brief moment, Sebastian felt somewhat pride in his daughter’s imagination, for being able to imagine something so detailed, that could probably have been very beautiful, had it not been for the sick fucking corporation messing it up. She had always had a very good memory and good imagination-... fuck, he wondered what she’d be like after all these years.

  
There was yet another villa within sight from the crashed car, and before he could move forward and approach it, he saw how a woman ran past, or possibly out of, a car, and hurried inside, with all her might. He had tried calling out a ‘hello,’ followed by a louder ‘hey!’ but she seemed in far too much distress to answer.   
  
He looked over at Ruvik for a second, “... she looked like she was running from something, rather than like she’s lost her mind. I want to ask her a few questions. You should probably stay slightly behind, or you might frighten her;” there was no way to sugarcoat it, really. The scientist did look enough like a corpse to scare an unprepared civilian. While he looked far more normal in his current appearance, and would probably pass in normal society decently, if people had turned into monsters here, the survivors would be on lookout for the slightest trace of it.   
  
He hurried up and jogged over to the front porch of the house, about to knock and announce himself, but already at the first knock, the door fell open again. It seemed it was broken enough to not be able to be properly closed. For a moment, he gazed around behind himself, towards the way she had emerged, and it did seem like she wasn’t chased by anything. He would have to be careful, and was holding the gun in hand, as he entered the building, carefully looking around.   
  
The smell hit him immediately; just like the other house, this place positively reeked, and was slowly falling apart. Carefully, he stepped inside, leaving the door a tad open, so that Ruvik would have some sight inside, as well. “Hello…?” he tried, carefully, but didn’t receive any response. Instead, he heard a noise that startled him enough to raise his arms with the gun, but then, he only heard the woman’s voice.   
  
_“... Skin and bones… Eat… Gotta eat…”_  What…? The voice sounded almost drugged, a little sluggish, and the detective had a very bad feeling about it. The sounds seemed to be coming from a room further in to his left, and based on seeing the open doorway to his immediate left, with a living room, he assumed it was likely a kitchen.   
  
_“Don’t cry… I am doing what’s best for you… Gotta eat…”_   
  
Slowly he approached the door, and pushed it open, ever so carefully. The first sight was absolutely bizarre, the woman was holding what seemed to be a child or teenager, by the neck, repeatedly smashing the head down against a dining table, seeing the body was sitting, and based on the lack of reactions to the pain and damage, it seemed to be dead already.   
  
Something seemed to alert the woman, because she turned towards the detective, and within a mere moment of looking straight back at the distorted face and glowing red eyes, he had fired the bullet straight into her chest. She let out a howl in pain, trying desperately to move forward towards him for a second, before he fired a shot in the side of her head, and she collapsed on the kitchen floor, halfway there. He supposed he could have been less prepared, but already from her act of violence, it was rather clear that something was off; he had pretty much expected her to already be turned.   
  
“Great…” he voiced, knowing well that Ruvik could hear him, even from the entrance. “Yeah, she’s a Haunted, she just looks… more like a zombie.” From the little he could see, where he was standing, there were white vein like structures over her hands and face, but she had fallen face forward, and it was a little difficult to tell more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-------- Facts & Headcanons ----------
> 
> Haunted vs Lost: Just know that the 'zombies' in the second game are called the Lost, but with Ruvik being the only reference for what they are, there is no reason for either him or Sebastian to call them that, rather than like the Haunted of the first game. 
> 
>  
> 
> Sebastian's capability: Note that we are both writing Sebastian's aim, capability and abilities based on Nathan's playthroughs of the game, and he is a rather good shot, and often prepared for things before they happen. Such a thing as the first encounter, would not be something Sebastian walked into unprepared, if someone had already warned him that there would be monsters in this STEM. 
> 
> Making STEM make sense 2.0: We will just keep on bullshitting things based on the game's logic that makes about enough sense to go with.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Upon being asked if Ruvik understood the machine, it was almost hard to not give him a much more sincere answer regarding how many further problems the device could potentially cause, but he knew far better than to waste time on someone who couldn’t possibly understand it. Among these problems was the effect the rewriting of STEM could have on the core. He recalled when the Administrator’s STEM presence had caused things to change inside his own head, how uncomfortable it had been and how much it had felt like some manner of virus. To expose a young girl to that, one who wouldn’t know what was happening to her or why she was feeling bad, that would cause strain on her, which in turn would turn into the further breaking of STEM, leading to Mobius using the device more often, and the whole process would repeat.

**Ruvik:**   
_“I’m prepared, you know, I’ve done this shit before. Are you?”_

The question was unexpected, it should not have been, and still it made him pause and look the man directly into the eyes. It was undeniable that he was a bit of a burden in there, more than he was a help, at least to the scientist’s own mind. Yet, he was very aware of what he could do and what he couldn’t, killing Haunted was far from his expertise, but he was determinate to assist in other aspects. Thus, there was no hesitation or uncertainty in the pale eyes that met Sebastian’s gaze. “I would not be here unless I knew what it meant to be here. I will do what I can.”

They continued walking, giving them both time to look around and take in what this STEM looked and felt like. Ruvik, unable to feel the rain or the concrete, glanced up to look at the sky and the clouds, they moved realistically enough to not be out of place. His attention turned to the way the rain affected the leaves and the vegetation around them, there were so many details that he came to the conclusion that Mobius had to support this STEM with the help of computers, as the details were too much to ask from one single, child’s mind, even if the core did make up most of what STEM was. Not everything seemed to be the girl’s doing, but enough to make her a rather impressive individual.

Movement caught his attention, making him look towards the closest house, as a woman ran towards it. Sebastian tried to speak to her but got no response, it didn’t seem like she had registered his voice at all. It didn’t seem good to him, but the movements had been focused enough, to the point where she had closed the door after her, making it very hard to immediately identify her as a Haunted.

The detective aimed his attention towards Ruvik, clearly intent on moving inside the house to check on her closer. He didn’t mind the direct approach that Sebastian took to the way his looks could negatively affect the person that the other man headed over to speak with. Ruvik was the type who found sugar coating unnecessary work, in the end, the result was the same, facts were facts. He completely failed to recall all the times he himself had avoided the direct subject, out of concern for Sebastian and his health, not realizing that when the matter at hand concerned himself, rather that his partner, it was easier to wish for it to be more to the point.

As Sebastian headed inside, he waited outside on the porch, listening to what was happening inside of the house. It felt like it didn’t take long at all for the first gunshot to be fired, soon followed by a second. He moved to look inside right away, only coming inside and over to his partner as he heard Sebastian speak again.

Ruvik teleported over to Sebastian, looking towards the corpse on the floor, and then at the buffé table, where the younger man was seated. He made his way to the woman’s side, about to lean over her and examine the body when she suddenly screamed and started flailing. He teleported away the second she seemed to be a threat, only to realize that Sebastian had blown her head off, almost before he had appeared again. This time, she was without doubt dead, prompting the man to return to her side, kneeling down. “...Mh. The light is too bad in here. Would you move it outside?”

After Sebastian had pulled the corpse out to the porch, the scientist knelt down by it, soon requesting to use the man’s knife. Sebastian’s observation was true, they did seem to be almost infected by a white, faintly gluelike, infection. It was in its brains, circling around on parts of the body as well, something he noticed upon cutting her clothes open. He could see the gluelike substance in her veins but upon cutting them open, the substance remained in place, not running out of her like the blood did. It was both inside of the body but also outside of it, growing and mutating the host. He pulled the knife back, looking at her chest for a bit and then plunged it into her stomach, cutting her guts open from the crotch to the chest.

“It’s good that it’s not a real body, or I would risk this infection traveling to me, this isn’t exactly the way an obduction is supposed to be forthtaken.” He supposed it was better for him to speak to the man, instead of leaving him in the dark about what he was doing, as he put the knife aside and simply pulled her stomach apart to look inside the corpse, allowing blood and bodily oils to spill from the open wound. “Flashlight.” He ordered, getting enough light for them both to easily see that her organs were somewhat infected, but not nearly as bad as the head was. It was also easy to tell that his cut had been extremely clean, not damaging anything at all inside of the woman.

“It’s an infection. It’s… similar to my STEM, what happened when my consciousness leaked into the subjects, after they had been inside of there for too long. Someone could have ripped it open to look inside its mind, searching for something, or it’s a stronger presence leaking into the subject’s consciousness.” He stood up and handed the other man the knife. Upon doing so, he noticed that his hands had become bloody but instead of going to wash them, he simply looked at them and the blood disappeared, as if it had never been there in the first place.

  


**Sebastian:**   
Ruvik seemed to be up for the task of taking a look, even before Sebastian had the chance to ask him to do that precise task. As per usual, it was attractive, and assuring, that his partner was the sort of logical one that he never had to look out for, who would never be a burden to him. Especially so in a place where said partner had powers and knowledge which little to no one else had. Of course, Sebastian wasn’t naive enough to forget the fact that any person he held dear could potentially become a problem, with psychopaths like the man in the suit on the loose, but it could have been far worse. Most of all, he never expected Ruvik to hesitate or stop at the things he had to do, in here, just like Sebastian himself wouldn’t stop.   
  
He had planned to walk past the corpse, to inspect the body sitting in front of the table. The plans changed very quickly, however, as the second his partner teleported up to the side of the corpse, she let out a fiendish howl. Honestly, Seb had barely realized that he had pulled the trigger, at the time he heard the gun fire, and the bullet hit the woman straight in her head, almost blowing it clean off. That…. Either meant that she had decayed quite a bit, or that something was off.   
  
He followed Ruvik’s instructions, and let the other examine the body out on the front porch. Seeing his partner at work wasn’t as gruesome as he would have imagined it to be, even when he gutted the woman open, once more proving just how sharp that blade was. He looked away, only for a second, but then swallowed down the discomfort and listened to the words, and bent down to look closer.

“Someone is doing this?” He just wanted proper confirmation to what his partner was saying. “Do you think it could be that psycho with the camera, or should we assume it to be someone else?”   
  
“This looks really fucking bad… we better hurry into town, I will just check the place real quick-...” he realized something that made him bend down and take his knife back, before he ventured inside again. To his great relief, the other body was still not moving, but now that Ruvik had pointed it out, the infection that was starting to move over the skin was clear. Fuck… that was just a teeanger, a goddamned child… he really had nothing good to expect from Mobius, it seemed. Still, he gritted his teeth, sighing as he stabbed the side of the skull, twisting the knife about, making sure that the dead body wouldn’t decide to get up and move again; one simply couldn’t be too careful in this case, and he had nothing to set the body afire with.

The table was filled with food that had long since started rotting away, and he suspected some of that shit to be actual body parts and raw meat, possibly even of people… Jesus. Everything was a mess, and it made him wonder if it was simply how the inhabitants projected their own environment, or if they had lived in this decay for weeks at end.   
  
He found that the TV was on, but had no signal broadcasting it, so he turned it off. The second floor held little to no interest, so he decided to return outside again.   
  
On his way out, the detective stepped into something wet, and looked down to find a familiar green fluid on the ground. What the Hell…? He leaned down, recognizing the scentless, green goo, and reached out to touch it. Only, when he did touch it, it faded away, as if it hadn’t been there at all. What… was his mind imagining things? Perhaps he was just affecting STEM with his memories of killing the Haunted.

They continued down the road, together, and the smaller road lead to a bigger one, that was completely wrecked on one side, but on the other side, it ran along, and while it was hard to see anything concrete, out in the distance, in the mist surrounding them, at least a large and well lit sign spelling out ‘Union’ was visible. They barely got the chance to get any closer, however, before something akin to an earthquake happened.   
  
“... What the Hell was that…?” he voiced out loud, evidently worried.   


Something was clearly wrong, they passed yet another car, that one unharmed, and with two open doors, suggesting that someone was in one Hell of a hurry to get out. Then, a little further, Union was becoming visible. Although, they didn’t manage to get very far before Sebastian saw people, moving about in ways that suggested them to either be wounded or simply turned Haunted, twitchy, sluggish, and animalistic. The grunts and noises convinced him that they were indeed turned Haunted. He quickly took shelter behind a nearby car, gazing at the chaos in front of them.   
  
Two people, dressed like Mobius agents, had been chased by a hoard of them, the exact scenario Sebastian had been very clear with his partner on wanting to avoid. One managed to get indoors, locking himself in, the other took the fall for his comrade, and Sebastian briefly noted that he would very much want that gun, seeing the man could not be saved and it would be a very big waste of time to start getting sentimental. Besides, he was Mobius, that was a good start to not warrant any sympathy.   
  
He whispered very carefully, “we should probably get in there, too… I will have to take these assholes out.”   
  
Almost on cue, a thinner blonde woman was sneaking closer, leading to Sebastian going into hiding again. She had left the larger group, and when she got close, he reached up, grabbing her by the hair, and pulling her backwards and out of balance, in a swift trained movement pushing her down, and quickly stabbed her twice to make sure she’d remain silent. Just like the last victim, there was traces of the white infection on her. Great.   
  
Now the creatures were at least far away. “I say we get inside there, sounds like a plan? If the guy’s alive it means he might be able to tell us what the fuck is going on.” 

 

  
  
**Ruvik:**   
“Someone isn’t as much doing it as they are responsible for it.” He corrected his partner, upon the man asking further about the topic. “Seeing as we just arrived and don’t know the situation well enough to be certain, it” he gestured toward the corpse “could simply be coincidence, a mistake that the psychopath made wielding his powers. Yet, from my own example, this infection should not be possible from someone who isn’t the core.” He only hesitated for a little while before finishing the conclusion. “It is possible that this has happened because of Lily herself. It’s most likely not something she is consciously doing, or wishes for, but stress and fear might build up and cause this reaction to her subjects. We don’t have enough information to state that for certain, which makes the psychopath a very likely suspect still.”

They didn’t dwell on the subject, instead, Sebastian moved inside to explore the house. Ruvik stayed by the corpse, leaning down to observe it further. He realized that his own hands were far from sufficient to perform the task, causing him to enter the house and grab the sharpest, smallest, knife that he could find, along with a fork to be able to move intestines and meat aside, in his exploration of the body. When Sebastian exited again, he had discovered that the body hadn’t been ingesting anything, as the stomach was empty of food, meaning that at least this one hadn’t started to eat any other human being. He had also found that the gluelike substance hadn’t affected the veins enough to cause bloodclogs, but if left alone for a longer time, it was likely to cause an abundance of problems, it was not a stretch to say that some Haunted had likely died from clogged blood in dangerous places.

He asked the other man to put his crude tools in the backpack, in case they became needed again, and they continued on. As the town came into view, alongside it’s ‘Welcome to Union’ sign, a tremor shook the ground. Ruvik, who already had a somewhat uneasy time on his unfeeling feet, ended up toppling over, luckily landing rather safety. Even if the impact did hurt him, it had far from enough to harm him badly. “Whatever it was, it should not be happening. Which isn’t the most pleasant sign.” Sebastian moved as if to help him up but he teleported instead, ending up just a little further away to make certain he didn’t collide with his partner.

When Union became unmistakably clear, they came across a scene where one Mobius Agent was tackled down and eaten, giving them both confirmation that the Haunted did eat people inside this STEM, while the second Agent entered a house nearby. Ruvik appreciated how Sebastian was aware of the fact that they couldn’t have helped the man, as he was swarmed by that group of Haunted, seeing as they were far outnumbered by the corpses, thus not trying anything stupid.

It was rather clear that the other man knew what he was doing, thus Ruvik moved back to take cover inside the bushes by the road, in that way being out of harm. He watched as Sebastian moved towards the house, past a tall wooden fence and to a parking lot. When the path became more clear, he teleported over to the bushes by the fence, waiting there instead. Sebastian shoved his knife through a Haunted by a car, placing the body down, and then slowly sneaked up to the last one that were in their way, by the house itself. Ever so skillfully, he easily took that one down too, then looked about and gave Ruvik a sign that it was clear. He appeared by the foot of the stairs, as Sebastian pulled on the door handle.

“Fuck… It’s locked.” The man stated out loud, in a whisper, to make sure that the Haunted didn’t take note of it. Ruvik watched Sebastian turn towards him, giving him enough time to note that there was a small window in the door.

“Move aside.” He whispered back, walking up to the window and looked inside. After seeing what it looked like, he disappeared from the stairs and appeared inside the house, walking up to the door and unlocked in from the inside. Seb was let in in less than three seconds, with them making so little noise that the person downstairs was likely to not have heard it, at all. Yet, the first thing Sebastian did was to loudly topple a bookcase over to protect the door further, definitely alerting the man downstairs to their arrival.

The house seemed to consist of two floors, something that became evident when one looked at the stairs to their left. Straight in front of them were a bed and two nightstands, to the left a bathroom. “I can search through this place, while you go meet the agent downstairs. We’re not very likely to be greeted gently, so do be careful. I would probably frighten him, as you have mentioned before, this solution is more time efficient. Call for me when it’s clear to enter, I don’t think I need to state it but avoid using my name if possible. Leslie will work, if needed, however strange I find it to respond to that name.”

He turned away from the other man, after getting confirmation that it was an acceptable strategy, leaving the other man to go interact with the current oldest resident of the house.

  


**Sebastian:**

Together with his partner, the detective silently maneuvered his way to the door, glad to know there was a bit of a fence separating them from the Haunted, and the more he interacted with the creatures, the more evident it became that they reacted much like he knew Haunted to do, reacting more to sound and movement than sight, and attacking everything that made a too loud noise. If anything, there was just something about these ones that made them seem even dumber, for reasons that Sebastian couldn’t quite figure out. As long as he kept his head cool, and didn’t get into a scenario where he got swarmed, he’d probably be fine with these creatures. They weren’t stronger or worse than people, they simply lacked the common sense and self preservation that made people more careful, which really wasn’t too far from some of the cases Sebastian had dealt with at work, except the cases at work didn’t try to rip his guts out and eat him. Like a person, even as undead, or turned insane and mutated, or whatever the Hell they had become, cutting the right spots open, and driving a knife into their skull, did the work of making them non-functional, or dead. It seemed that ruining enough of their functional organs, or blowing their heads apart, also worked, but it was a little too loud to be efficient, and should only be resorted to in a hurry.

When they finally got inside the building, he made sure to block the passageway a little better. While just turning a bookshelf over like that was loud, it obviously just alerted one or a few of them, as they were moving around in circles, searching in vain for the source of the noise, seemingly having no idea where it came from.

Honestly, he’d rather alert the Mobius agent than not, and he was fully ready for having another case of a Haunted to blow the brains out of, seeing the scenario a little earlier, with that woman. People were sometimes worse to deal with than monsters and animals, as they were a lot more unpredictable.   
  
Ruvik was right in his reasoning, and thus, Sebastian set on heading down to what seemed to be a basement, or at least another floor, slowly but surely opening up the door-...   
  
“Don’t come any closer!” The agent sounded incredibly agitated… great.   
  
Fuck. He immediately drew back, taking shelter behind the wall next to the door frame. He had been in far too many situations like these in his life, and had been training for them so long, previous to it. There was no way to immediately know how agatated the man had gotten from such a shocking experience, but he hoped that Mobius operatives were at least a little more mentally prepared.   
  
Inside his own head, Sebastian cursed, thinking back about Kidman’s statement of trying to cooperate with them…. Ugh. He didn’t have time for this. Time to go through the same rehearsal as always.   
  
“Alright. Stay calm. Don’t shoot,” Sebastian made quite the effort there to not sound annoyed. Clear instructions, calm voice, calm demeanor. While a lot of it usually was against his core personality, it wasn’t like he would have been able to become a cop if he hadn’t been able to deal with these sort of scenarios calmly.   
  
Slowly, with his hands raised and visible, he stepped out into the doorway, ready to back away in a second. These scenarios were always risky, and there was no real way around it; now that he knew of the mess inside STEM, he wanted cooperation, he wanted at least some sort of fucking clue where to start, and what was going on.   
  
He slowly brought up his gun, making it evident where it was and that it wasn’t aimed at the man, and then carefully crouched down to push it over the floor, towards the man, making it very clear that he had no harmful intent.   
  
The agent obviously had no experience with a gun, the way he held it in an awful grip that would risk straining his wrist from just using it.   
  
“You can lower your gun. I’m on your side.”   
  
The man looked… not aggressive, which was a positive start; he started to look hesitant, which was the exact mindset one wanted someone threatening to get into, when they started thinking, and stopped acting on impulses, instincts and reflexes. Even the voice that came out of the agent sounded unsure; “you’re not Mobius…”   
  
Well, no shit. That was actually a somewhat interesting revelation. Did that mean that he expected even alive citizens of this place to turn against the organisation? Did they have guilt that might come crashing back at them? Or was there perhaps a method to identify that he was, in fact, not an Union citizen, right off the bat.   
  
“You might not be one of those,-... things… that does not mean that you’re on my side.”   
  
Sebastian was positive that Ruvik would have rolled his eyes, at that one; it really wasn’t a bright statement. It showed an attitude of hostility, either a face of the organisation or as an individual, that was rather alarming. People who expect others to be after them or to hurt them often led a life that would warrant it, or were people who would do such to others. 

As much as he would love expressing distaste and sarcasm, that was not how scenarios like these were handled; “you’re right,” start with a confirmation, always go the path that will be the easiest for them, where they have no reason to defend themselves, “I don’t work for Mobius, but I was sent here by them.”

It seemed to be a step in the right direction, but then it all retracted back, as it sometimes did when dealing with unstable people. The man was obviously nearing some sort of mental breakdown, which was obvious from the chased look in his eyes, and lack of balance. He looked like he was entering a state of shock, and rambled something about those ‘things’ out there and what they could do, information that obviously led absolutely nowhere, since it wasn’t an accusation, it only led to Sebastian confirming that he had seen them, as well.   
  
“Lucky for you, your partner was willing to sacrifice himself so that you could escape,” Sebastian stated, giving the other a chance to read between the lines that he did see what went down outside.   
  
For a moment, the man lowered his aim just slightly, obviously looking offended by the words; “he wasn’t my partner! He was just a member of Union’s security detail! Protecting me was his job, and my job is to solve a hardware issue!”   
  
Ah, yeah, when Sebastian thought about it, that was what the information in his office had said about this O’Neal.   
  
“Dying inside here is above my pay grade,” the man stated, sounding calmer, explanatory. He was obviously going into a state of trying to cope with having been saved, trying to rid himself of the guilt he was obviously feeling. It was a textbook reaction really. Sebastian imagined this guy to be one of those who were pushed around a lot in his everyday life, by the way he talked. Still, the detective only had eyes on the gun, and now that the other was calmer, it was getting better, as he was simply holding it, and not aiming it straight at Sebastian. Still, when looking closer at it, he noticed something, that made him relax, but he didn’t want to betray his position. It seemed there was no danger at all, after all. Then he didn’t have time to play good cop, the other was taking too much time, and was clearly unstable.   
  
“I’m not a soldier, I’m just a technician…” the guy whined out.   
  
“I know…” Sebastian commented, before stepping forward.   
  
There was just a slight hint of panic in the agent’s eyes as he threatened to shoot the detective, Sebastian just walked forward, and with well trained movements, forced the gun out of the man’s hand without harming him.   
  
He stepped back again, and held the gun up for them both to observe; “a soldier would have taken the safety off.” True to his words, there was still a safety lock on the gun, preventing it from being used.   
  
No time for bullshit; “I told you: we’re on the same side.”   
  
To the man’s credit, he didn’t anymore look like he was panicking, but rather as if he had been pushed around, and was annoyed the stranger that had showed up, forcing away his ‘control’ of the situation, not that it was much control to speak of. If anything, the man seemed to have calmed enough, and thus, Sebastian spoke again. “Let’s try this again, I’m Sebastian Castellanos.” He held the gun out for the other to grab, which was in a sense the psychology of letting the threatened person or animal come to you, and not the other way around.   
  
The man obviously had an attitude about it, but he grabbed the gun, taking an immediate step back. He seemed bothered, but not threatening, not anymore. At least he turned his back to Sebastian, seemingly gathering himself for a second, which was a sign that he wasn’t immediately threatened by the detective, right then. At last, the man turned to gaze back at the intruder, with a softer, but bothered expression. “... I’m O’Neal. Liam O’Neal.” He turned towards Sebastian, and finally managed to look somewhat polite and decent. Finally.   
  
It rather quickly proved that the man was a selfish asshole, and a coward, but that didn’t seem to matter. Sebastian filled in the information, that the man asked of first; it was only fair to tell at least what he could tell without betraying his position, explaining the situation with the core, rather than his daughter, and explaining the complete blackout and lockdown inside STEM. If anything, he briefly thought back to his time in Beacon, and how badly he had wanted answers, and he just couldn’t go without at least having the humanity to tell the poor fucker what was happening around him.   
  
They quickly came to a conclusion and deal; no one would get out until the core was found, and thus, they should work together. It seemed that this field technician had a lead on the core, and that Sebastian could use his comradio, that was, well, a little more advanced than just that, but he hadn’t had time to look into what it could do, with everything around them. It provided a map of Union, it seemed, and comradio locations, as well as leads on signals sent out from the core herself.

O’Neal also disclosed the fact that they were in a Mobius safe house, and that there were plenty of those things inside the place, giving them more chances to observe what was going on, and keeping order. Safe houses did make sense, as just one tiny little piece of action they had taken based on what was learnt from Beacon, and what could happen in STEM, but then again, if they had learnt anything at all, none would be in there now.

  
The man had even let a sound recording of the signal play, and through a lot of buzzing and bad audio quality, the voice of a young girl could be heard, she was calling out ‘where are you?’ desperately, seemingly very upset. Sebastian almost felt an imaginary punch in his stomach, right then. Hearing her voice alone was painful, made him ache to get out there right then, but he had to do things right.   
  
It was kind of funny, and perhaps a bit ironic, but also annoying, that in the very face of it, he really couldn’t deny the man answers. He wanted to blame this O’Neal guy, as much as he blamed the organisation itself, but all he could see right then was a messed up fucker who was stuck in this monstrosity of a machine, having people die around him and not understanding shit of what was going on. Sebastian even went as far as promising to tell if he found the other members of the team.   
  
It was clear that this exchange was exactly what Sebastian needed to understand at least a bit of what was going on. It definitely wasn’t a waste. They both evidently had no interest in one another beside the same goal of restoring the core and getting out of there.   
  
“Right, there’s something else,” he started, now that they had gotten to a better start, “I am not alone, I have an associate who is a scientist, with me. The short story is that he has severe burn scars from previously in his life. Just know that he’s not going to turn into a H-.. monster like that, okay?”   
  
O’Neal obviously looked a little taken aback and bothered. “You couldn’t have said that earlier?”   
  
“Look, you weren’t exactly giving me the time to discuss things, and we have to get to the core.”   
All they had discussed so far was vital information, no chit chat, well, aside from mentioning Baker’s death.   
  
Thus, Sebastian turned back towards the way he came, and went to the door, “R-... Leslie, are you done having a look about?” 

 

 

 **Ruvik:**   
His exploration quickly showed that there was little to no useful items inside of the house, not even the bathroom had anything of actual use, as a toothpick wasn’t of much assistance against, well, anything. He did however, find a syringe like the one in the first house, something that hinted on STEM adapting to Sebastian. He pocketed it and then closed the bathroom cabinet, having been able to listen to most of what was being said downstairs but now turning his entire focus towards what they were saying.

There was a corridor that lead towards where Sebastian had headed, prompting him to walk down the same way. It would have been so very easy to simply teleport down it and then continue on with his usual speed but instead, he walked down it, doing so while he continued to listen. It was almost a little laughable, the way he was so calm when it came to matters with this Mobius agent, how certain and calm he was regarding the prospects of Sebastian’s safety. It was easy to see how this man wasn’t even close to the danger levels of the woman with the saw blade arm, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a threat. It came down to him simply believing in the other man, knowing that Sebastian was more than capable of handling the situation.

The burn scarred man reached the end of the corridor and peeked around the corner, finding an open door by the end of a short set of stairs. The door was open, he could see spaces next to it where he could easily be sheltered from view. He considered staying where he was, listening until he was called for, but quickly realized that he did not want to walk down those stairs, no matter how much it would prove him not to be a threat. He teleported to the right side of the door, stopping there to listen.

His impression of the man named Liam O’Neal was… lacking. The man clearly wasn’t a very bright one, in some ways, he reminded the man of Marcelo Jimenez. Small minded, unpleasant, desperate to have someone else to run over, least be pushed about himself, and of course, whiney. He was not a man that would prove useful in a pressed situation.

All the more impressive, was the detective himself, even if Ruvik had expected him to be professional in this situation, he was more than that. The man was able to soften his voice, to say the right things and altogether get a lot of information out of the cockroa-, man; this O’Neal wasn’t Jimenez, he simply reminded of him. Among this information was the knowledge about a girl’s voice, heard on the phone that Ruvik only now realized to be more of a hybrid between a radio and a phone.

They reached the end of their discussion, leading to Sebastian introducing him, then immediately almost called him by his name. He sighed, turning around so that he was facing the man in the door opening. “I am here, Sebastian. Yes, I also finished the investigation.” He moved inside the room, thus being able to look at and be seen by the other man. Liam O’Neal wasn’t traditionally attractive, his voice didn’t sound old but looking at him, it was very hard to tell his age. It could be because of stress or simply bad aging, but he could be anything from thirty to forty. Not that it mattered too much. The man had a very familiar look in his eyes, the kind where the person wanted to stare but was trying to be better than that, thus trying to avoid showing how uncomfortable the scars made them. Ruvik had seen it many times when working for Mobius.

“My name is Leslie,” he doubted he would ever be used to calling himself by that name, “as Sebastian told you, I am a scientist, I was called in alongside him due to my area of expertise being the human mind and brain.” He tried to adapt what he had learnt outside of  STEM, attempting to use open exchange of information to make the man less on edge around them, seeing as he himself would hold seemingly no threat to the technician, unlike the strong detective next to him.

“Why would they send someone like you in?” The man with glasses responded. “Not to, uh, be rude, but you don’t seem like the best type of person to send into... this.” Everything he said had such a whiny tone to it. Ridiculous.

“You’d be surprised what understanding of the mind can do to assist you, in a place like this.” Ruvik replied, then turned to his partner. “I heard the matters about following the signals, seeing as this is a workshop, you should have a look around before we continue on.”

He turned back towards the Mobius agent once more; “you mentioned some sort of Field Emitter. Mobius were in far too much of a hurry to give us all the necessary details of their work in here, expecting us to be able to cooperate with your team. Would you give me a further, in depth, explanation of what it is and how it works.” It wasn’t a question, it was a demand. Even if Ruvik was more aware that he tended to not ask for things, and how impolite it was seen as, he believed that asking nicely on a topic that had been completely neglected by Mobius, that was clearly important, was a little above his capabilities.

  


 

 **Sebastian:**   
The exchange went surprisingly smoothly for dealing with someone like O’Neal, and Sebastian was just relieved that it didn’t get worse than the man being judgemental based on Ruvik’s exterior. They wouldn’t have time for more bullshit like that.   
  
His partner had a point though, it was a workshop, and a Mobius safe house. Assuming that the person that had owned the gun did, in fact, work for Mobius, there was a good chance that Sebastian would find matching bullets in a Mobius safe house. O’Neal had been kind of clear on the fact that there weren’t any better weapons right there in the shelter, but there should be ones stacked away in other places. As much as Sebastian wanted to look for Lily immediately, he realized that he stood no chance against things like that chainsaw creature, unless he found better weapons. It was different from inside Beacon, Ruvik had explained in the past that Sebastian managed to defeat the monsters because his mind expected there to be a way to do that, but if the thing had been created by that psychopath, then that wasn’t as easy, at all. He really missed that strange but powerful crossbow from the last STEM…   
  
At least, it seemed that the technician didn’t hold any illusion that he had any claim to the things inside the safe house, seeing they were all ‘working’ under Mobius; annoying as the thought was, at least he found more bullets, starting to pocket them. It didn’t take long to search the Mobius marked crates and boxes, or the shelves of the workshop, meaning that for the last few minutes, he listened in a little bit on the exchange between the other two.   
  
“Basically, if calibrated right, it overruns the program of the virtual environment, erasing the incorrect data, and replacing it with a new copy of the original data. There’s an automatic scan function that all Mobius operatives with a comradio can use, but it takes time. Get it?”   
  
Funny enough, the man seemed to feel very good about himself talking about something he understood very well, Sebastian observed. He wasn’t as negative anymore, but instead had that attitude about him, as if he was dealing with having to explain things to people that didn’t quite understand his work. Funny enough, Ruvik sounded like that sometimes, too, but it was a little more justified given how unique the technology of STEM actually was. Even Sebastian could, from the little he heard, understand that the Stable Field Emitter stabilized the place around it again, and that he could start the process using some function in his comradio, probably.   
  
He cut in there, “you done? We should get going.”   
  
Upon walking outside the workshop, he found himself in a small corridor, one that didn’t seem to have much function. He suddenly heard faint music play, and saw a very familiar old fashioned mirror crack open in the distance, straight ahead in the corridor. Well, that would be fucking useful, if he could get back to his own space through there. There was no reason to go there immediately though, they had to set upon finding Lily. 

 

  
  
**Ruvik:**   
The more he heard Mobius operatives or representatives speak about STEM, the more his awareness of their ignorance increased. In was perhaps not too strange to liken the whole machine to a computer, after all, the human mind could only relate things to one another, rather than making new things up, and it would make sense how someone uniformed would think the two were more similar than they were. Mobius were seemingly able to assist and support STEM with the help of computer programs and devices inside the device. Yet, they were using these to try and change the fact that they were using STEM wrong from the very beginning, meaning that whatever advances they came up would solve their problem by the cost of creating another.

Upon being asked if he understood it, it was almost hard to not give him a much more sincere answer regarding how many further problems the device could potentially cause, but he knew far better than to waste time on someone who couldn’t possibly understand it. Among these problems was the effect the rewriting of STEM could have on the core. He recalled when the Administrator’s STEM presence had caused things to change inside his own head, how uncomfortable it had been and how much it had felt like some manner of virus. To expose a young girl to that, one who wouldn’t know what was happening to her or why she was feeling bad, that would cause strain on her, which in turn would turn into the further breaking of STEM, leading to Mobius using the device more often, and the whole process would repeat. It wasn’t hard to imagine the organization repeating the process on their test subjects and failing to realize that they were responsible for overusing them.

“Yes, I do ‘get it.’” He finally responded, only to be saved by Sebastian wishing to move on. He had no objections to leaving the house and this man, to actually turn towards important matters instead of conversation.

They walked through the corridor, both stopping at different windows to look outside before they deemed it save enough to exit the house. As they stood on the parking lot outside of the building, Sebastian started to fiddle with the radiophone, tuning in to different frequencies until he located the one with the girl’s voice. “Looks pretty far.” Seb stated. “But it’s the only lead we’ve got. God, I hope it’s Lily.” He bought the device up and showed that it also held a map of Union, the frequencies location now having been marked out. Ruvik was not too good at reading maps, mostly because he never really needed to, but it did help a lot that the phoneradio showed their location, as well as what direction they were heading in. With some more practice, he was certain he would come to understand how to read maps better.

As they were about to start moving, another tremor shook the ground. Ruvik almost fell over one more time but Sebastian seemed to have been prepared for it, thus catching him without any problem and helped him back to his feet. “That felt...close.” The scientist mumbled out, trying to hide the fact that he was somewhat embarrassed over the rescue from the ground.

They waited until it stopped and then headed out of the parking lot, quickly discovering that the entirety of Union that had been to the right of the safehouse was simply gone. It looked like it had fallen off, completely annihilating all the Haunted that had been on the road. Next to him, Seb turned around and whispered out a low “what in the Hell.” Upon turning as well, looking up at what the other man was viewing, he could see pieces of Union floating far up in the air, looking like space debris, completely disconnected to any piece of land. “If it keeps breaking apart like this, there won’t be any Union to search.”

“Then we shouldn’t waste time gawking at it and instead start searching it.” Ruvik commented, having started to look around for a place to start. Almost immediately to their right was a white church, one that had the same symbol as the one on the pamphlet that had seemingly upset the psychopath back at his mindspace. They both agreed that it was a good place to start, thus heading towards the red doors. Upon reaching the doors, they could see that they were clearly decorated with the symbol as well. Seb gave him a glance and then pushed them open.

_“Please forgive me for what I have done.”_

The first thing that they heard was the sound of a man’s voice. A man, most likely the priest, was sitting on his knees, in front of the altar, begging with his hands clasped. Upon the altar was a corpse, one that had clearly been very infected with the glue like substance, and spiked through the chest with a metal symbol. “Please forgive me for what I have done. Please forgive me… Oh, my God… Please.” The man’s begging increased in desperation the more he spoke, wagging back and forth as he whined. “I know I have sinned, but… Not this!” Next to him, Sebastian had started to move forward, holding the gun lowered as to not scare the man further. “Please, I…” Ruvik stayed back by the door, trying to pose as human as possible, to make sure that the priest wouldn’t think he was one of the Haunted, thus placing his hands on his hips, observing quietly what was happening.

“Hello, are you okay?” Sebastian attempted to speak to the man as he walked up the aisle while turning his head to keep an eye out at the surroundings, especially at the big windows that posed quite the uncomfortable easy entrance for the Haunted. The begging continued until the man suddenly let out a shrill scream, being yanked backwards as if by invisible hands. Ruvik moved forward, not because he had any illusions to protect his partner but simply because the transformation was fascinating to him. He hadn’t witnessed a transformation inside this STEM, he knew that he could potentially learn a lot in observing it, and would not let the opportunity slip him by.

The man’s mouth was wide open, and a blue light became visible from inside of him. It seemed as if the infection was spreading from somewhere under his clothes, moving over his skin and causing it to turn into rotten flesh. Inside the rotten flesh, he could see the white substance as well,further proving to him that it wasn’t something they had contracted after being transformed. The eyes started to turn red and bloodied, it almost seemed like the other force worked to dry them out while turning the man. The blue light started to thin out into smoke, steadily disappearing as the man changed. The man fell forward again, released from the smoke and the pain, laying still on the carpet.

Sebastian stood still next to him, having the gun ready but didn’t fire, after gesturing for Ruvik to move back, which he did, the man started to slowly approach the fallen priest. Suddenly, there was the sound of glass breaking as two Haunted moved in from opposite sides through the glass windows, in the commotion where Seb started shooting them, the priest got up as well, joining in trying to get to the man. Ruvik felt useless once more, as all he could to to help the other man was to stay back, covering in a corner as to not be in the way. If there was something he could do, perhaps even hold them back in any way… Yet he didn’t have any powers here, he couldn’t create manifestations or similar inside this STEM. He would be on the lookout for a gun from now on, at least with a weapon, he should be able to help a little more than just… standing in a corner.

However, Sebastian was clearly, in some ways, used to this, as he was almost frightfully effective in taking the creatures down. The doors to the church were slammed open, by a big Haunted that had probably been called there by the gunshots, one that headed straight towards the detective. Yet the man was ready for it, he took it down as well, the last bullet effectively blowing it’s head up. Being cornered like this would have been a problem for anyone but the way the man simply handled it was truly impressive.

“...Are you alright?” Ruvik waited a little longer to speak, making sure to not speak too loudly as to not attract any more of them. “You are… very good at this. I had almost forgotten.” He stepped forward from his corner, walking down the aisle while avoiding to step in the green goo that was now covering the ground. “I would stop and examine the corpses but your daughter comes first. Let us follow the signal.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The monsters seemed to be about to jump at him again, but a shrilling female scream interrupted them, and had them stop in their movements. It was a rather normal scream of a woman, but any shrill and pained scream of a woman awoke trauma enough for the detective to be temporarily shaken, at least it wasn’t-... No, fuck no. 
> 
> The disgusting, long, thin, and impossibly strong, claws emerged out of the ground, ripping the monsters apart.

**Sebastian:**

Seeing the world around them fall apart was… strangely expected. In a way, it all made more sense, like the way the end of the world would look in some sci-fi movie, rather than the absolute mess it had been to navigate the collective mind image of Krimson City, as it had been falling apart around him. Seeing block float about in black void almost made more sense, and the tremors were making a lot of sense as well.    
  
However, just because it made sense didn’t mean it wasn’t bad; it was really bad. Having everything fall apart like this might mean that something was happening to Lily, which made it even more urgent for them to find her. Luckily, the signal was located in a place which seemed to still be intact, as far as he could judge from simply gazing in the direction. Ruvik was completely right, they needed to hurry.    
  
Something worth investigating, however, was right on the way that lead straight towards the signal of his daughter. There was a Church building, seemingly currently unoccupied, in the near distance, just across the street. There seemed to be less of the monsters, in that direction, as well. 

Said visit to the Church proved a few things to be true. One of the following was that the residents were turned, and they seemed to be worshipping something related to whatever the fuck they had found in that psycho’s own world. Secondly, they got to see a person turn into a Haunted, which if nothing else, provided good reference. Further, Sebastian found that he was still rather used to killing those bastards, but he felt very naked with just a normal handgun, and would definitely want to find something better.    
  
The church building seemed incomplete, like it was just an empty shell, having no other rooms or other than the bigger aisle with the benches, leading up to the altar. There were buildings like that, of course, in the real world, but it just felt a little incomplete.    
  
“Yeah… I’m fine,” he started, finding his partner approaching him. The detective was currently standing over the corpse of the priest, rather close to the altar, and looked around one last time to make sure they wouldn’t randomly be ambushed; he couldn’t hear a thing in the near distance, so he assumed they were once more alone. In response to Ruvik’s words, a weary, small, smile spread over his lips, “I’ve had practice.” In a sense, the Beacon incident had completely screwed over his life, but right then, right there, he supposed it wasn’t so bad to be prepared for everything that was thrown in his way, this time. Even he realized that someone that had no prior experience of STEM, and someone who was alone, would be very much more likely to die in there.    
  
“We’ll go,” he started, but turned to the altar, looking over the body that had been stabbed. From afar, it looked like it had been nailed to the wooden structure, but obviously, that wasn’t the case, the way the body laid, it suggested it having been moved there after dying, meaning that the priest had probably stabbed it to death, and then pulled it there, to pray; said priest’s words suggested that he was more than a little shaken over having killed someone, even if that someone was a monster. “Huh,” he huffed, “it looks like the Padre had some fight in him.” Sebastian had, after all, many times come face to face with those creatures, and he hadn’t expected someone who wasn’t trained for it to be able to kill it off with what seemed to be a semi-sharp part of an ornament. Other than that, there seemed to be nothing of interest; there were no books, there were no texts or signs of anything that would explain the cult any further, hence, it wouldn’t be worth staying. Sebastian did realize something though, and it was purely because of what Ruvik had earlier explained to him about the Haunted; rather than it being contagious in any way, it was likely that the priest had turned because of the excessive amount of stress he experienced, from having had to defend himself against that monster, and killing it. Fuck… that was likely what most residents would be like. It didn’t really make any difference from a virus, actually, because the increased amount of them would stress out the rest of the inhabitants, meaning that they’d probably be sure to turn as well. Fuck.    
  
“Hey, is it possible for the core to be infected by this…?” His voice betrayed genuine worry, and honestly, he didn’t even want to imagine how scared and stressed his daughter might be, being caught up in everything that was happening.    
  
The doors to the Church had slid closed again, meaning that there was no point in heading out that way and risk being ambushed. Rather, he went to the right side window, that had been completely smashed from the creature jumping through it, earlier. He leaned out, checking that the area was clear, and then he simply jumped out of it, expecting Ruvik to be able to teleport past the obstacle.    
  
They didn’t walk very far in the right direction before Sebastian had to sneak up on and kill some of the residents again, leaving a bunch of corpses behind. He found them around a fallen Mobius operative, immediately setting through driving a blade through the skull of the man, making sure that they wouldn’t have any surprise visits from said man, later. It seemed the monstrosities roaming about wasn’t caring about anything but the kill, meaning that Sebastian found another handgun, and a whole pouch of bullets. It was becoming rather clear that the house he had ended up with, at first, had been one of a Mobius operative; the gun model seemed to be the standard for them.    


 

  
  
**Ruvik:**   
While his partner walked over to the altar, the scientist knelt down next to one of the bodies that didn’t have any clothes on it. He would have wanted to cut it up as well, but there was no time to be wasted on making certain about things he could most likely take for granted, seeing as all the evidence pointed to the conclusion that the white substance was infecting the Haunted. He did stop to pull the eyelids of one of the corpses open, checking the retina and the pupil. While he did so, he mused about the reason as to why their eyes were glowing red. There was no real disease or condition that would cause a human being’s eyes to glow like a sunset, was it due to media giving the core an impression that they should? Perhaps it was due to people believing they were so utterly fantastical and inhuman that it had happened as a side effect to those beliefs? It could also be some manner of, well, way to tell them apart from the other corpses, even if that one seemed a little fat fetched. 

Sebastian voiced a question that caught his attention, mostly because his partner sounded so very distressed. Ruvik slowly stood up as to not hold this conversation hunched over a corpse with his fingers in its eye. “If it’s possible? Of course not.” He even shook his head, admittedly slowly, but he still did to emphasise his point. “The core does not work like that, it is true that the core could technically lose grip of who they are and become something different. I did sometimes find it hard to remember exactly what had happened to me, which is one of the reasons I created all those recordings that...you found. However, in Lily’s case, she is a child. A fully grown human has a lot more awareness of what is real and not, of what can and cannot be done. A child, on the other hand, lack that awareness, meaning that all this happening to her, while still scary, wouldn’t be as impossible as you find it to be.” He noticed that his hands had gotten a little dirty from touching the eyeball, thus he made it vanish. “Seeing Haunted and floating buildings isn’t that strange to a child’s mind, even if it is stressful, it will not lead her to question her existence. It is more likely to be seen as a strange dream. Not to mention that this infection is not caused by stress and loss of identity alone. It is caused by these factors as well as the intrusion of the core’s awareness, of STEM itself. My STEM was seemingly represented by barbed wire,” his eyes reflected discomfort as he spoke of it, the man avoided to look directly at the other as he spoke of it “and what seemed to be red, bleeding blisters. This is her STEM and in a sense, her infection, it will not in any way affect her directly.” 

After calming the man’s worries, they exited the church, Ruvik by teleporting and Seb by jumping through a window. They made their way into a few Haunted that Sebastian easily took care of, before finding a fallen Mobius operative. Ruvik stayed guard while the other man searched the corpse’s pockets, only to inform the former that he had found another gun. The scientist turned towards him, taking a second to note to himself that he never thought he’d be excited about the prospects of using a firearm. “Is it a small one? Like the one you already have?” He asked, looking over the item in the other man’s hand. 

Ruvik came over to the other man’s side, suddenly feeling a little uncertain about how to voice his request. “...Could it be possible for me to take that weapon then? I hold no illusions about being able to use a firearm properly, but I want to be able to at least have a last line of defense. If it so happens that I would need one, or that me interfering by using one could save your life, it feels a lot more… safe for us both, if I would have one as well. I am… not sure if I am making much sense, but I want to do what I can do to assist you, when there is danger.”  _ Not be a burden that can only hide. _

  
  


**Sebastian:**

The look on the detective’s face was one written in surprise, or sudden realization. He really hadn’t considered the option of arming the scientist. A handgun might just be enough, he didn’t know all that much in depth of Ruvik’s condition, but he did not imagine any recoil from shooting a gun to be pleasant, and it might be dangerous, if he was to use anything big.    
  
A handgun, though… well yeah, he couldn’t see why Ruvik shouldn’t get to use one. Under any normal circumstances, Sebastian was the type who would vouch for guns being licensed; it really was simple, a lot of ugly shit happened when anyone could get a hold of a gun without a properly handled permit.    
  
Inside STEM however, inside something akin to a goddamned apocalypse, yeah, he would definitely trust Ruvik with a gun; that however, was more of personality profiling, that the man was sound and logical enough to handle a deadly weapon.    
  
All in all, two guns were safer than one gun, any additional firearm was a potential life saver-... that sounded way to much like some NRA advertisement. No, it really was different, out in the real world, scenarios like these didn’t arise, there weren’t any zombie apocalypses going.   
  
“Yeah, you can take it, but you better be careful, and don’t take any risks with it.” He didn’t feel like he needed to point out to the scientist that he shouldn’t shoot if the detective was too close to his target, that seemed a little too damn obvious.    
  
He made sure that the gun was fully loaded, and stepped aside a little, closer to one of the house’s front porches, to make sure no creature could sneak up on them, and then he proceeded to explain how the gun worked. The sooner Ruvik knew the basics of how to use it, the better. He tried to make certain that the man would at least hold the gun the right way, to not put too much pressure on his limbs when firing it. There was no way to practice around there, given that the gunshots would likely alert someone or something. 

They proceeded a little further, and Sebastian stopped to double check that the signal from his daughter was still located in the same place. When he started the comradio, however, it burst to life with receiving a strong nearby signal, seemingly from one of the nearest houses. He looked about briefly to make certain they were alone, before he locked onto the signal, trying to map it out.    
  
A seemingly female voice, probably a young woman, erupted from the device, surprisingly loudly, so much that the detective immediately reached for lowering the sound.    
  
_ “It’s coming! It’s coming… Walls won’t stop it. Doors won’t stop it… nothing will… it’s coming!”  _   
  
“What the Hell-..” Sebastian started, turning to his partner, “how about we don’t go in there unless absolutely necessary,... what the fuck.” He sounded a little more shaken than he would want to admit himself to be. This was STEM, it could fuck people over completely, and there was just something with that scared voice of a woman that sent chills down his spine, and gave him the feeling that he recognized the voice, but couldn’t place it; he found that he really did not want to enter that house, because it was almost illogically repelling of an idea to his mind… huh. He just… no. Not there.    
  
He just shook the feelings off and proceeded forward.    
  
At the very end of the street, a few blocks up, there was a small hill with what seemed to be a diner at the very top, having a smaller road lead up to it, and a little more vegetation around it than the rest of the houses in the town. At least, the place was intact, but Hell, it seemed nearly swarmed with undead bodies moving about. He was really damned glad he had more bullets than just the ones in his gun, at that point, because he realised that he simply had to take at least a majority of them down, or they’d be risking to be completely swarmed, and locked in a corner, because that diner seemed to be the end of the road, with Union falling apart behind it. Thus, he moved as far right as he could, away from the road where most of the Haunted were, and used the vegetation and stones on what had become the edge of the world falling apart, to hide and kill, one at a time. He had to shoot a few of them, given that they were in groups, but it seemed like it was hard for them to spot him when he was hidden, and that they were very bad at locating from where the gunshots came, which was pretty fucking splendid, because then he knew he could shoot them with less risk.    
  
At last, they proceeded up to the diner, and the coast was pretty much clear, with only a few of the Haunted further down the road. He had seen one thing he really did not want to deal with that, it looked like bodies, bodies of children, had morphed together into one big crying and screeching creature, taller than the rest, and Sebastian made sure to stay far away from it. 

Once more, the comradio went haywire, but when he focused on the signal, suddenly, the world around them, the nearest space at least, turned almost black and white, and he saw the ghost of a shadow, or a white shape of a child, run into the diner. It ran straight through him, given he was a little too shocked to react fast enough, but well, it seemed to just be an imagery of a signal, of what happened previously… wasn’t that awfully convenient? What was this supposed to be? A computer log?    
  
Still, he searched the place until he found the room behind the counter, and found a passage inside, given the door was locked. The whole place was a mess, but even with blood splatter and similar, everything was too intact to make it seem like monsters had roamed about inside. Once he found the small room where the traces seemed to lead him, he made sure to unlock the door immediately, allowing Ruvik to enter as well.    
  
Sebastian gazed around in the room, trying to look for clues, but stopped mid-motion with his mouth half agape, staring at a sight on the floor. In mere half a second later, he hurried forward and kneeled in front of the small object, picking up a well familiar little knitted toy, turning it over and inspecting it. For a moment, he felt his heart in his throat. That was the Lily doll his aunt once made. Suddenly, everything was a little more real; what other possible explanation could there be but the core actually being his daughter, if this was in here?    
  
The world blacked out for a moment, but instead of shifting or changing, or him going anywhere, he suddenly saw… well, no, experienced being chased into that diner, hiding in that room from someone at the door. Only, whatever the experience was, it was from the perspective of a child, and it seemed she had found her way out the small and high window in the back of the room… clever child.    
  
As fast as he experienced the thing, it was gone, and he was standing in front of Ruvik again, looking further shaken, in the Sebastian sort of way that bordered on being annoyed and aggressively frustrated. He even had to take a deep breath to speak. “She-.. she was here. This is her doll… I think she was hiding from someone, and escaped out that window, she’s always been resourceful and clever… we should check back outside.”    
  
He looked down in his hand again, and the doll was gone, “What-... What the Hell is going on? I just saw her escape someone in here, when I picked up that doll-... was that, was that her memories?”    
  
It was the only thing that could make even a resemble of sense to him, and it made him think of that sunflower field, and the burning barn, long ago. Back then, he had fallen into Ruvik’s memories left and right, seeing ghosts of them repeating around him, and sometimes straight up experiencing the man’s past.    
  
Someone was chasing Lily… fuck, they would have to hurry.    


 

  
  
**Ruvik:**   
He would have liked to not feel like a child who just got permission for something he hadn’t really believed himself able to get permission for, and yet he found himself excited about the prospect of Sebastian telling him yes to using a gun. Ruvik knew his condition too well to have any illusions that he could use a firearm without unpleasant consequences, yet the handgun should be small enough, without too much of a recoil, to allow him to use it without straining himself beyond what his body was capable of. “I will not take any risks, it is a last resort only. It… is not as if I am capable of practicing any with it out here, I doubt I’d be much help in shooting something from a safe distance.” 

After a brief yet clear instructive talk, Ruvik had gotten an understanding for the workings of the tool. He stopped to grab the holster for the gun from the corpse in front of them, getting some assistance from the other man to put it on, before he placed the weapon by his hip. He already felt more comfortable with the gun, even if firearms tended to make him a little uncomfortable, it was better to have a weapon that not, inside of STEM. 

They continued onwards, until Sebastian started to fiddle with the radiophone once more. Without much of a warning, a female voice suddenly started to whimper out words, loudly enough for both men to immediately look about to see if any of the Haunted had been within hearing range of voiced fears. 

_ “It’s coming! It’s coming… Walls won’t stop it. Doors won’t stop it… nothing will… it’s coming!”  _   
  
“What the Hell-..” Sebastian started, turning to his partner, “how about we don’t go in there unless absolutely necessary,... what the fuck.” Ruvik looked up at him, finding that the man looked more than a little shaken. While he didn’t find the voice or its implications enjoyable, it seemed like they had shaken the man before him very badly. 

“Your daughter is more important than whatever the woman was frightened by.” He agreed, reaching out and gave the other male’s upper arm a small squeeze. He did this to support the other, reminding him that he wasn’t alone, yet the touch allowed him to feel that his partner was shaking ever so slightly. “Let us continue.” 

Following the signal lead them to a diner on a small hill, one that was crawling with Haunted and another bigger creature that seemed to be sobbing and wailing in pain. Ruvik teleported to the diner and then waited for the other male to reach it, observing as the man took out the Haunted that got close enough to be a threat. It simply did not stop being fascinating to observe the manner in which the man made short work of all the obstacles in his way. It didn’t matter how brutal or quick the kills were, they were altogether done by a man who could easily be mistaken for a serial killer, seeing the way his killing was done so very efficiently. In a sense, the man was a serial killer, but the things he did kill were no longer human, nor were the killings done in the real world, which meant that the man could never be convicted for murder. 

Sebastian activated the phoneradio again, once he had gotten to the diner, allowing them to observe the memory of what had happened there. It was Ruvik’s first time seeing the ghostly shapes, which Seb had seen in his own STEM, something that fascinated him quite a bit. He had never seen people’s memories in this manner, instead only experiencing them as real, something that was happening in the moment, while he observed from the side. Yet, it could not quite be observed, as it was over very quickly. 

They entered the diner, finding a rather whole place, which seemed untouched other than a few things being topped over. Ruvik followed Sebastian, as it seemed foolish to teleport about and risk frightening the girl with his appearance. They found a backroom, inside which the other man located something that made him almost drop down onto the ground in his hurry to pick it up. As he picked it up, turning the item over, he seemed to completely zone out, focusing on things that Ruvik could not see. He decided to just wait for him to recollect himself, keeping a lookout behind them to make sure that nothing sneaked up on the immobilized Seb. 

When the man turned towards him again, Ruvik could see just how shaken the man was, how much the discovery of the item, which he could now identify to be a doll, woke emotions in Seb that he couldn’t truly control. He listened to the man speak, nodding in the affirmative before looking back down at the item in the man’s hand, only to also note that the doll has disappeared. 

“I did not see any memories, other than the one we watched when we entered this place.” Ruvik commented, placing his hands on his hips, as he had developed a habit to do so when he was stressed or uncertain. “Ah, so that is why you stopped to… I see now. Let us check behind the diner then.” 

They exited through the red entrance doors and continued towards the back of the graffiti covered walls to the back of the building. Ruvik told the other man to wait by the entrance and to stay out of sight, thus scouting the area for Haunted before he returned to inform his partner that it was safe to exit. He didn’t believe the girl to actually be there, and she wasn’t, meaning that they were not looking for her for the moment, but rather clues as to where she had headed next. Together, they walked around the diner, and Ruvik teleported up on the building’s roof for a better viewing spot, allowing the latino to look about behind the back. Even from up there, he could hear the man mutter as he began to look for clues to the girl’s next location. 

_ “What the…?” _ Ruvik briefly wondered if Sebastian knew that he had a habit of talking to himself, often doing just that when he was stressed.  _ “Another signal. Good. I’m coming, sweetheart… Just hang in there.”  _

The scientist teleported to his side. “I heard about the signal, the whole left side is completely barren, we can avoid the hoard mostly altogether, and especially the loud one, by moving through there instead.” 

They started to leave the hill, but Sebastian suddenly held out his arm, his voice turning into a sharp order. “Fuck. Take cover.” Before Ruvik had the time to register what the problem was, a creature came out of the grassworks, one that was too fast for the scientist to actually register the appearance of. He followed the man’s orders, moving back up on the roof to stay out of danger, upon looking down again, he found that there were two of the creatures now. They were faster than Seb, he could see the man attempting to shoot them but he couldn’t get a good focus for shooting, as they were up in his face as soon as he stopped to aim. He felt his own heart beat in his chest, this really was not the same old creatures that the latino could easily subdue, these were fast and dangerous. He wished he could help him, yet he had no means of being able to aim from up on the roof. If only he could help Sebastian, or distract them in some way… They were so fast. Fuck. If he could only stop them in some way, if he could only… grab them, make them stand still. Grab them and rip them apart. To protect Seb. If he could only… 

There was a sudden scream, a female voice screaming. It was not a scream he immediately recognized, but what he did recognize were the hands that had just appeared out of the ground. One of the creatures had been grabbed by long, boney fingers, with even longer nails, holding it stuck in the same spot. The pale arms, four in total, had grabbed the creature by the middle, lacing around it in a way arms shouldn’t be able to, before they ripped it into two pieces. Before the realization hit him, as the disbelief was too strong at first, the arms had disappeared into the ground. Next, they appeared by the other creature, one that had almost managed to corner Sebastian against the diner’s wall, and was preparing to jump on him. Once more, but without a scream, the hands grabbed the creature’s feet and middle, swiftly ripping it into pieces, leaving a bloody pile where it had been. 

Ruvik stood as frozen on top of the roof, unable to move until the silence settled in. He appeared by the latest made corpse, falling to his knees as he touched the ground where the arms had been, his mind incapable of recognizing that his pants became covered with the green goo, blood and various other body fluids that leaked out of the body. “It… it was her… Laura. My… my Laura, my sister…” He moved his hands over the concrete, as if he wanted to try and dig through it with his own hands. “Seb, she was… she came to help… Sebastian, she came to help us… Why didn’t she… Laura, come back.” 

  
  


 

**Sebastian:**

Only somewhere, deep inside his mind, a small illogical part had wished they would find Lily somewhere around the diner. Of course they wouldn’t, the likelihood of her staying after having been chased about was not very high, especially if she had made it that far, and there were really no good hiding places behind the building, or around it. 

They would simply had to go search the next location, hopefully able to hurry the fuck up, and catch up with her. At least, she seemed to be on the move, and judging by the little he had seen, still managing to hide from whatever or whoever was chasing her, she wasn’t captured or hurt, hopefully. He had to account for the best, and simply be prepared for the worst, there was no time to let emotions get in the way of the search.    
  
Luckily, Ruvik made that very search far quicker by pointing out the best location for them to go. 

  
A lot less luckily, they were not alone.    
  
Something moved in the grass, and the detective was quick to ready his gun, making sure that Ruvik was out of the way for whatever-... fuck it was fast. Sebastian tried to shoot them, but they moved about really fucking fast. It was something down on the ground and darker grey, although he could make out the glowing red eyes, suggesting it was some real fucked up Haunted creature. He shot at it, and missed, and before he knew it, it was lunging itself right at him, forcing him to back away, but it still got a pretty decent fucking claw mark somewhere on his arm, and he didn’t have time to check. Only when it stopped and snarled at him did Sebastian see that it was… a mess of human torsos, but not much more than that before he tried to shoot it again. Fuck. This would be a lot easier if he hadn’t noticed a second one emerging out of the grass. They seemed… animalistic, they surrounded him, cornered him, seemed to be aware that they were hunting in a pack. Fuck.    
  
Shooting them felt rather hopeless, they were fucking fast, and even when he managed to get a really good shot at one of them, it didn’t seem to stop the mess of arms and heads from moving, to take one head down… Fuck.    
  
He needed to focus, fuck, they didn’t seem very strong, maybe he could literally rip them apart with the survival knife, if they got closer, he didn’t have much of a choice, as he was running out of time and they were cornering him up against a wall, which was really fucking bad.    
  
The monsters seemed to be about to jump at him again, but a shrilling female scream interrupted them, and had them stop in their movements. It was a rather normal scream of a woman, but any shrill and pained scream of a woman awoke trauma enough for the detective to be temporarily shaken, at least it wasn’t-... No, fuck no.    
  
The disgusting, long, thin, and impossibly strong, claws emerged out of the ground, ripping the monsters apart.    
  
Unlike his partner, the detective fell back against the wall out of fright, and borderline panic threatening to surface. He didn’t have anything with fire out here, he couldn’t kill her, he wouldn’t stop her… and she was gone. Everything turned silent, almost too silent, and even if he could see the scientist teleport to the spot where the hands had last been seen, he couldn’t make out much of his words. It had all happened way too fast, and he had barely had chance to react or comprehend what he had just seen. Sebastian had instead sunken back against the wall, down on the ground, breathing erratically, feeling the pulse up in his throat, hitting hard. Why the fuck was she in there?! Of all horrible things he recalled of Beacon, she truly was the worst. He had lost count of nightmares he had been having about her, and he had felt so good about her being gone.    
  
The uncomfortable mix of feelings brought upon anger, anger was easier to express, it was easier for it to surface. The worst, however, was when he didn’t know who to be angry with. Whose fault was it that such a nightmare now plagued the world in his daughter’s head? Was it his own fault? Was it Ruvik’s fault? He couldn’t make out what to think of the fucking mess. He couldn’t even feel relief that he was alive, he was far too shaken, having seen something that, to him, was worse than anything this new STEM had to offer, who was the reason that everything that psycho in a suit had conjured up looked like a parody of the real deal, not at all scary in comparison.    
  
Fuck. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \------- Facts & Headcanons --------
> 
> Gun restrictions: We're not trying to make a point about the use of guns, it just makes sense based on everything written about Sebastian Castellanos that he would prefer stricter gun restrictions, seeing it's people like him who handle the cases when people and guns end up being a problem. 
> 
> Core infections: We do have a pretty decent plan to explain all of this, but it will make more sense later in the story. 
> 
> Computer logs: Funny enough, supporting STEM with a virtual environment works to explain a lot of things, such as why the player can track Lily with the comradio and see all those ghosts of things happenign. 
> 
> Seb talking to himself: Once you think about it, the habit of the man saying things out loud to affirm himself, ( and obviously to explain things to the player of the game ), is a very cute habit for a real person like him. 
> 
> Laura: You'll get Laura facts and what is going on in later chapters, don't want to spoil things for you.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Seba-” he spoke up, as to warn him that he was letting his guard down but as he spoke the first letters of his lover’s name, a hand appeared from the puddle, one with long fingers and even longer claws. Sebastian grunted, trying to pull free but more hands appeared, four of them, holding the man stuck as he twisted to try and break free. “No, Laura, wait!” Ruvik called, taking a step forward, his voice was drowned by her scream just before she pulled Sebastian down. Down into the puddle of blood.

**Ruvik:**

It took him a little longer than he would have liked to realize that something was very wrong with Sebastian. He only realized, because he heard the man’s breathing, heard how it was borderlining on panic. As he looked behind himself, and saw the man, down on the ground, with an expression of such fright that the scientist lacked the words to describe how much it hurt him to witness it. The same second he saw it, he was by the man’s side, kneeling in front of him. 

“Sebastian.” He spoke his name low and clear, carefully placing a hand on his leg to get his attention, without going too far and touching his face, as he could see that the man had resorted to anger. There had been many times, during their time living together, where he had to calm the man down, due to the memories that haunted him. Outside, it had been easy, he had been able to remind him that none of it had been real, that the mere fact that they were together was proof that he would be okay and that the nightmare was over. Yet, in here, it was far different, but perhaps not as different as Seb thought. 

“Sebastian, you will listen to me. No. Do not be mad, you will solve nothing by being mad, we do not have time for that. You know I am right.” He began with ordering him to listen, mostly because he saw the anger threatening to overflow. It had happened in the real world too, but very, very rarely, and Sebastian always felt bad about it afterwards. “Yes, Laura was here, or at least her hands, but she did not come to hurt you. I wished that I had the power to help you, and to make sure those creatures did not hurt you. She seemed to respond to that wish. Sebastian, you are safe. The Laura in my STEM was… a beast. This is different.” He stopped to look behind them, making sure that nothing sneaked closer as he was focused on the other man, everything seemed safe so far. “We… can’t talk here, can you stand? Let us move back into the diner.” Ruvik stood up, grabbed the other man’s arm, and pulled on him.

Sebastian stood up and together, they made their way back inside. Ruvik pushed the man towards a chair by a table, moving around by the means of teleportation, to make certain that the place was still safe. One of the windows was open, and he closed it by looking at it, proving to himself that STEM, in some ways, was able to respond to his mind, even like this. He moved behind the counter, finding a bottle of water that he returned to Sebastian with. “...She will not hurt you. I do not want to hurt you, neither do I have any illusions about having intruders inside of my mind. The only reason she appeared was to protect you. To protect us. When you have calmed down, we will continue on, drink that water. I will not allow you any alcohol, you know that.” 

  
  


**Sebastian:**

He couldn’t fucking afford crashing now, this wasn’t the goddamned time for such a thing.    
  
There had been a fuckton of times where Sebastian had to fight that Hellish creature, or run for his life from her. He had fought for his life, over and over, and occasionally, even stood face to face to her, with a fence between them, where she couldn’t reach to him, and right then he hadn’t been all that scared. It could simply have been the rush of adrenaline, or the fact that he was in the middle of it all, but back then he had scorned her, wanting little more than to simply burn her to a crisp, to eliminate the threat; he had been going on pure survival instinct, and he had not been afraid.    
  
Three years later, the detective found himself completely out of the loop. Sebastian didn’t want to admit to trauma, he didn’t want to admit to it no matter what the psychiatrist journals said, or what he experienced after the Beacon incident, but it sure was an undeniable truth that the hardest hit always came afterwards, for survivors. Technically, he should be well aware of it, due to his line of work and experiences, but it was still downright miserable and embarrassing to feel himself weak. He didn’t have fucking time to weakness, he had to save Lily; he had to make sure to get the fuck out of the mess. It had been fine with everything else, no matter how fucking disturbing, but not her, not that thing. Three years later, she was taking him completely off guard.   
  
Right,.. he heard a voice right next to him, and the detective glanced up towards the person who was right above his face. Ugh, too close…    
  
Icy blue eyes gazed down at him, sternly, but filled with concern, and in his hazy vision, it was hard to tell if it was the face of Ruvik, Leslie or Myra that was gazing down at him. The voice made it evident that it was Ruvik, and that was honestly such a relief, illogically so since he already knew who it was-... he really was a mess; he needed to get his head straight again.    
  
Fuck.    
  
Sebastian heard some of what Ruvik was saying, and wanted to object, but he felt a little too nauseous to start shouting at the other right then. The scientist was right, they shouldn’t be out there, with the monsters around, and even if Sebastian wanted to shake the other off and continue, his body wasn’t allowing the movement he wanted, and thus, he let the other guide him back inside the diner. His entire being just wanted to be done with this and get on with what he was doing, and it made his skin crawl. He didn’t object to drinking the water, it was helping.   
  
Of course he was still angry that Laura had shown up in there. If he wasn’t angry, he’d just end up feeling something far worse. However, his partner was making an awful lot of sense, evidently trying to speak sense into the detective. “... You couldn’t have made something a little less… forget it, thank you.” No he wasn’t fine, but he didn’t have fucking time to think of this all. He’d rather pretend to be okay, than have his partner try to work him through something neither of them had time for. Had they been on the outside, Sebastian would likely have pulled the other into his lap, but part of his mind kept on reminding him that Ruvik was a lot more fragile, as of currently, hence, he leaned forward a little and let his right arm sneak around his partner’s waist, pulling him a little closer until his forehead connected with Ruvik’s shirt. He made a very audible sound of a sigh turning into a grunt, seemingly trying to draw a deep breath.    


If Ruvik really believed he could control that thing, then… then Sebastian had no other option than to believe it. Great. His hand curled itself around the fabric of the back of Ruvik’s turtleneck, and the detective choose to simply remain silent. While it looked like he was calming down, he was mostly getting restless and impatient, they couldn’t lose track of Lily, they had to go.    
  
Hence, he got up, looking his partner straight into the eyes, and really, Sebastian didn’t look that shaken, even if something was a little off. He leaned in and placed a soft kiss on his partner’s lips. “We should go, and try to find some heavier weaponry, if we can, but Lily comes first.”    
  
  


 

**Ruvik:**   
He very nearly informed Sebastian that he could not control everything that had to do with his mind. He might have believed himself to have complete control over it, once, as he created STEM, about six years ago. A notion which had been quickly removed from his mind, as he had stepped into his own mind and found it a chaotic, hellish nightmare, filled with monstrosities and freakish mutations. Sebastian was not likely to be consciously aware of it, but Ruvik only found himself safe around two people, whereas it was rather impossible to in any way manifest another Sebastian, next to the one he already had. It made much greater sense that he could manage to summon Laura to help him, rather than his partner, who was the one in need of help in the first place. 

While every aware part of him knew how much more preferable it would be if they had reached the understanding that Sebastian would gain nothing by pushing his feelings down, the burn scarred man was even more aware that his partner took very, very, badly to being pressured to calm down when more important matters needed to be tended to. If he was to push now, demanding that the man calmed himself fully before they continued, it would not end well. Thus, he offered what little comfort he could, wishing that he could have done more to assist with the problem, instead of treating the symptoms. A lot of people had the misconception, when it came to psychology, as well as mental illnesses, that the symptoms were the real problem. While the problems caused by the mental state were always worthy and important to treat, real change and accomplishments were reached by gaining an understanding for the cause, and then unravel until the cause was treated. 

Ruvik looked down at the man that was pressing himself against his chest, he could feel the ghostly touch of the arm on his back, feeling as the fabric was being slightly pulled at. His rather unfeeling fingers made their way to the man’s hair, sinking slightly into it as he stroked the man’s head, hoping that he wasn’t being too forceful or too gentle. This could have been a perfect opportunity to tell Sebastian that he, probably, loved him. Yet, the time did not seem right, when he thought about the fact that they were trying to save the man’s child, after seeing the girl’s mother, the family and the life that his lover had… How could he tell him that he had such strong feelings for him? 

Sebastian suddenly stood up, almost causing Ruvik to stumble back, as he had been rather busy with his thoughts. It looked like the man had gathered himself enough to convince himself that he was good enough to keep on going. Ruvik wondered if he should tell him that he didn’t believe for a second that he was okay, but as a man of action, Sebastian wasn’t likely to take the suggestion of holding back as even an option. A kiss was placed on his lips, one that did feel welcome, albeit a tad rushed. He looked the man into the eyes, placing his hands on his own hips, and gave him the stare that told Sebastian he knew exactly what was happening, and that he didn’t like it very much. “I will stop you, if you push yourself too far. I understand your feelings or urgenry, which is why I will not argue, but when I deem your reckless pursuit of continuing to have gone too far, I will stop you.” He reached out and straightened the other man’s collar, then stepped back to allow the other man access to the door. 

The signal told them that the shortest way to the next location was down the hill and towards the right, but as neither of them wanted to approach the big, crying creature; they circled around instead, moving alongside the big rocks on their left. In doing so, they moved rather close to a house, which had a small path that reached up to it. On this small road, was a hospital stretcher, although the house itself didn’t look connected to anything like a hospital. Ruvik was about to turn to the man and ask if they could have a look inside, as he believed it possible that the house could have belonged to a nurse or doctor, meaning better dissection tools. However, the way Sebastian looked made him pause. There was an intensity in the man’s eyes, as he looked upon the house, the intensity reminded him of the way the man had looked inside of his STEM, when faced with something he needed to overcome. “...Sebastian? What is wrong?” 

  
  


**Sebastian:**

Sebastian averted his eyes from his partner upon being borderline reprimanded, knowing well that yes, Ruvik would likely be able to do such a thing, and it wouldn’t be pretty, not because of Ruvik, but because of himself. The man was right, too; Sebastian was quite certain he could push himself further than the other would suggest, but there was a limit, and he couldn’t push himself too far, not when there were such high stakes. It felt pretty shitty to need the constant reminders.    
  
He just wanted to leave it be, and leave the issue be was exactly what they did, as they once more, much more carefully, emerged out of the diner, and tried to get back without being noticed. There were evidently more creatures around than before, perhaps the ruckus and noise had called them there. Aside from snatching another one of the walking corpses down, from behind, driving a knife through their skull quickly, they seemed to be avoiding the monsters decently enough.    
  
He could never have accounted for, or imagined the next hiderance on their way. It came quickly, taking the detective off guard, with a single, simple, sense of terror, disconnected from any context or manifestation. It was just dread and terror, and it felt misplaced, like it wasn’t something he was supposed to feel, like cognitive dissonance, yet it stopped him dead in his tracks. Sebastian had been terrified before, sure, and he had seen some disturbing things fucking with his head inside STEM, but he had never quite experienced his own mind overridden by something else, quite like he had inside this STEM. First the memories of his past, now this, forcing emotions his mind logically knew he shouldn’t have.    
  
It was just a house, it shouldn’t be anything more strange than the ominous and eerie feeling the other seemingly empty houses were giving an impression of. The only odd thing was that there was a hospital stretcher, or well, on the little pathway to the front porch. What the-... Ruvik was likely speaking to him, but for the first time in a while Sebastian experienced the bizarre situation of not being able to recall where he was or what was going on. Something was obviously fucking his head over, he could feel it, and it felt dreadful. Hence, he took a step forward, somewhat in a haze. Upon putting a hand on the handle of the door, the detective turned to his partner, somewhat shocked. He really didn’t fucking like the feeling of having walked up to the house without knowing why, but part of his mind remembered having walked up there somewhat cautiously and normally…. Fucking Hell.    
  
“I-...” They didn’t have fucking time for this. “I’m fine.”    
  
He’d investigate the place, be in and out real quick, just like that. He didn’t know why he wanted to, but he still did. Well, he wasn’t alone, he’d be fine.   
  
The inside of the house was very normal, nothing noteworthy, at all. So little noteworthy that it was getting a bit unsettling. There wasn’t a trace of anything that would connect the place to someone working within the medical field, and it seemed to be a small house for just one person, not rotting away as badly as the house they had started out in, but it was dusty and abandoned. The bathroom door was locked; Sebastian assumed it was the bathroom based on the placement, and didn’t particularly feel like breaking the door open just for that. Instead, their investigation led them to a corridor at the back of the house, after passing a bedroom. On the right side was a backdoor outside, and to the left a corridor that led to a white door, leading somewhere, and it was worth investigating before they got out again. The door led to a garage area, and honestly, it was starting to get even weirder that he had felt such a strong pull towards this place, when there seemed to be nothing inside of it. 

That was when he spotted a an open file casing with files inside, it was placed on another hospital stretcher, and had a handwritten note on it saying ‘READ ASAP,’ underlined twice. Okay then-... So far, the house seemed safe at least, so speaking shouldn’t be an issue.    
  
“Let’s see what this is,” he started, and brought up the papers, only to stare, nearly blankly, at them for a long time. Dread started creeping over his skin, and he swallowed in discomfort, letting out a dissatisfied grunt, before he handed them straight to his partner, not wanting to see those damned papers again. “What the Hell is that doing here?” The words were likely more of a statement than a question, he sounded really annoyed, if anything.    
  
_ ‘Date: November 17, 2014. _

_ Detective Sergeant Castellanos, _ __   
__   
_ Following the events at Beacon Mental Hospital in October 2014, department policy requires that you undergo a mandatory psychological evaluation. Please report to the Standards and Training Division to schedule your Fitness for Duty evaluation.  _ __   
_   
_ __ Dwayne Wright, 

_ Police Psychological Services.’  _ __   
__   
It followed with a handwritten note on the paper:   
  
_ ‘Sebastian, this is nothing to worry about. Just tick a few boxes, answer a few questions, SOP. _ __   
_ -Jim’  _ __   
__   
Sebastian really didn’t fucking like where that was going. Had his mind put it in this place, was STEM fucking him over again? He clearly remembered getting those paper the first time, and true, he hadn’t been as worried as he could have been, given the circumstances. However, it had only spiraled downwards into worse and worse situations. After these years, he knew that Mobius were likely to blame for it, but back then, it had been bad.    
  
  


 

**Ruvik:**   
Instead of answering him, Sebastian walked away, towards that house, as if he was being pulled by a force that only he could feel and respond to. It reminded him of the way the priest had been moved about by an unseen force, even if this one was a lot gentler and not even close to deadly. Had it been anyone else, it might even have been interesting to see the effects that STEM caused to the person. Yet, this was Sebastian, and the effects were worrying and uncomfortable. 

Ruvik followed him to the door, giving him a clearly worried look as the man turned around to face him. He automatically tried to raise an eyebrow as the man had the audacity to claim that he was, once again, fine. Instead of answering, he simply gave a small nod, if things turned too bad, he would stop the man. This seemed to be psychological, STEM seemed to be responding in some ways to the man, as had been part of its original intent. This intent, of course, being to be able to assist in treating mentally ill patients, at least in theory. Perhaps this was needed? If STEM actually confronted Sebastian with something that he needed to face, it might even help the man. Was that wish thinking? Was he only imagining his machine to be able to do anything good, instead of being a living Hellscape. Maybe it was worth observing, it might, might just help… 

They entered the house, with Ruvik staying back and observed the other man moving about in the house, whereas he otherwise would take the lead in securing the house. The house seemed surprisingly normal, even if it felt very...blue and cold. He would have liked to find a better word to describe it, other than ‘blue.’

They moved through the house, the burn scarred man following the other. They reached the garage before Sebastian found something worthy to talk about. On a hospital stretcher laid a case file, one that looked to be ripped it two from what Ruvik could see. There was a note on it, one that he wouldn’t read until the other man handed the papers over to him. 

Sebastian read them first, then, with a grunt and some words that betrayed the man’s discomfort, he was handed the casefiles. Ruvik opened them, looking down at the words written in it. He read in silence before looking back up at the other man. “...Psychological evaluation. I see.” He tried to hand the papers back but realized that the man didn’t really want them, causing him to lower his hand again. “It is not hard to imagine that not going very well. You are a tad too stubborn to be easily convinced that Beacon wasn’t real.” After a quick glance down, he faced the other man once more, looking into his eyes. “...In what manner did this evaluation go down? And who is Jim?” 

  
  


**Sebastian:**

“Ugh…”    
  
He sighed, and averted his eyes again. “How the Hell did you imagine it to have gone?” Despite the sharp words, Sebastian wasn’t raising his voice or sounding aggressive, he was weary and tired of the topic if anything.    
  
“It’s probably as you said, they wanted to fuck me over and make sure I didn’t know what was real and not,... Fuck, I don’t really know what to say. I was slower than I should have been, and should have played along, and I did, after a while, but it took some fucking time to figure everything out, this was pretty much right after the incident. I got my job back again when I started playing along.” While his arms weren’t crossed, he was visibly uneasy as he spoke.    
  
Well, he had been put out of commission for a while, yes, and had gotten it back only because he had let himself play into Mobius’s hand, or well, because he had been determined enough to manage to make them think he had gotten over the Beacon Incident. He had, honestly, doubted his own experiences, and it had turned him into a mess beyond anything he, or people that knew him, could have imagined would happen to the man. That was approximately when Ruvik and Leslie showed up at the door, like a ghost from the past, validating every experience he had been through. Being stuck in doubts had been the worst of it all, not actually knowing if he could trust his own mind, or his own judgement. No matter the Hellish situation, as long as he had the ability to act, he felt, at least remotely, assured. Not knowing what was real… that was far worse, way fucking worse. Ruvik had been his saviour in all that, actually confirming that they were toying with him, messing him up on purpose, and that the Beacon Incident actually happened.    
  
“Jim is just a coworker, administrative work mostly. I’ve known the guy for a decade, at least. Heh, poor guy must have been really surprised when things didn’t go as he said, he probably had no idea what was going on.” It had been embarrassing, shameful and aggravating to see the looks of people who thought they knew him, and know that he couldn’t tell them anything, and that they would just keep on making assumptions and wonder what the Hell had happened to the detective they knew. The fact that Mobius was, and could be, everywhere, had always been in his head, too, and it made him doubt just anyone and everyone around him. Still, there were people he just couldn’t imagine would work for them, and thus, he had swallowed down his paranoia and reminded himself that not the entire world was against him, just most of it.    
  
“I didn’t tell people anything, really, so they probably thought I was losing my mind, I don’t really want to know, let’s just get out of here.”    
  
The house was obviously empty, and there wasn’t anything more to search, it seemed. The detective didn’t like the feeling in his gut, about this place, but at least he could go back to finding his daughter. Already at the doorway back to the house he stopped though, the backdoor that led outside, opposite of them in the corridor, was now open, meaning that something or someone must have opened it. Quickly he drew his gun, and signaled to Ruvik to be silent. A shame, he wanted to ask his partner about the papers and what the man thought it was doing in STEM. Hopefully, the intruder was just another Haunted, but he’d be careful anyway. As they approached the door, it closed slowly by itself, with a slow, unsettling creak. With a quick glance to his right, Sebastian confirmed that there was nothing lurking, awaiting to attack them, as he approached the door, trying to get it open; it wasn’t locked, but it wouldn’t budge. “What the fuck…” he whispered, aware that he shouldn’t make too much noise. He did not like the idea of being locked in, or guided certain ways; for a moment, he feared they had returned to whatever that Hellish place of the psychopath in the suit was, but as he looked through the window of the door, he could clearly still see Union out there, so probably not.    
  
They would just have to try to head out the other door. He glanced over at Ruvik, and the look in his eyes obviously showed that he did not like the situation at all; they would have to be cautious. To their advantage, from the corner in the hallway, it was rather easy to see mostly all of the living room, kitchen and bedroom, and it honestly did not look at all like anyone had come inside. After checking the bedroom quickly, Sebastian progressed, gun in hand, into the living room once more, making sure that nothing would surprise attack them. The only thing that was different, it seemed, was that the TV had been turned on, and was making a lot of noise, as it wasn’t set to any specific channel.    
  
Sebastian leaned in, about to turn the TV off again, when the picture on the screen suddenly cleared up, and he only had the chance to see a dark corridor with something at the very end of it before the world around him blurred out, and he heard a voice, all around them.   
  
_ “File number 15. Interview with Detective Sebastian Castellanos. Detective, could you please tell me about that day at Beacon Mental Hospital?”  _

The voice sounded like it was played through an old recorder, or something of the kind, except the fact that it didn’t have an origin. It was… familiar, in a way that left a sour feeling in Sebastian’s mouth, and immediately made him feel displeased and annoyed. He didn’t expect hearing his own voice, playing through what sounded like the same recorder, responding to the words.    
  
_ “I’ve told you ten times, already.” _   


For a moment, it felt like he was floating, dreaming even, as his floating vision followed the corridor up towards something that seemed to be a person, sitting on a chair, at the very end of it.    
  
_ “Let’s go through it one more time.” _   
  
The voice that sounded like Sebastian sighed,  _ “This is more like an interrogation than an interview…” _ __   
__   
_ “Please, Detective…”  _ __   
__   
Suddenly, everything buzzed out into white, with a ringing noise that made him feel nauseous. The haze cleared into exactly where he had been standing. 

“That’s… me.”    
  
After a moment’s of silence he realized how stupid that commentary actually was, and how damned obvious it was. “I mean… Did you hear that, just now? That was my session with the psychiatrist they assigned me, that happened. What the fuck is going on?”    
  
The lights around them were flickering, it felt like the whole house was flimmering the same way the TV was, but in blue. “I haven’t seen the place that showed though, not that I know,... we should probably get the fuck out of here, I don’t like this.” He walked over to the door to the front porch, only to find that it wouldn’t budge, either… “fuck, we might be stuck.”    
  
He didn’t want to stand still, and hence, headed back towards the back hallway, while awaiting Ruvik’s response. They still seemed to be alone, luckily, or so he thought, before he caught a moving shape in the corner of his eye, somewhere in the bedroom. By the time he turned and raised his gun in the right direction, all he saw was a black shadow, looking like a grown person, fading out of existence, having put a note on the table. He walked up to what was left on the table, making sure to look behind him again, only finding Ruvik, to much relief.   
  
Upon starting to read the papers found, Sebastian was starting to feel seriously cornered. Rather than giving the papers to his partner, he dropped them right back on the desk, drew a sharp breath, nearly hissing, as he turned around, simultaneously pressing his right palm over his forehead, pushing it upwards and through his hair, in pure frustration. He did not like this, he did not fucking like this. 

_ ‘File 15: Psychiatric Assessment of Detective Sebastian Castellanos. _

_ While cleared of any wrong-doings in the disappearances of Detective Oda and Junior Detective Kidman, Detective Castellanos’s statements about the Beacon Mental Hospital Incident have been vague and evasive.  _

_ Initially reluctant to speak to a mental health specialist, Detective Castellanos eventually opened up about what happened that day. It is my expert opinions that he is suffering from paranoid delusions. The recent death of his daughter combined with whatever happened at Beacon seem to have fractured his grip on reality. It is my recommendation that Detective Castellanos-..’  _

The paper had been ripped in half, and Sebastian really didn’t want to know what was on the other half, not really. He didn’t need any fucking reminders of what they had said about him, he didn’t want to think about the dread of doubting what was real.    
  
A sudden noise made him flinch, as reality blurred out in an instant, and exchanged the place they were in with an all too familiar scenery of a surreal mess of hospital equipment in a decaying world… No. He didn’t have time to ask Ruvik, who was luckily still with him, what was going on, before he once more heard his own voice playing around them.   
  
_ “We had a call… Something happening at Beacon Mental Hospital. We went in… but it wasn’t the hospital. It was… somewhere else.” _

“What the fuck is going on?” In sheer disbelief, he stared straight at his partner. Were they stuck in one of his memories now, the same way he had been stuck in Ruvik’s past, once, years ago? Maybe that was it, it made the most sense to his reference of STEM. He seriously didn’t want to imagine what this situation would have been like if he hadn’t learnt what he had about the damned machine.    


Once more they were interrupted by the all too familiar voice of his past assigned psychiatrist;  _ “Are you certain that’s what you saw?” _

_ “My story’s not gonna change, damnit! It was like Hell in there, a whole other world…” _

__   
_ “And this all took place at the hospital?” _ __   
_   
_ __ “I just said it didn’t! Jesus, can’t you understand?!”

As much as he hated hearing all of it, and hated remembering how damned miserable he had felt back then, it felt even more embarrassing to have his partner listen to it, to just how much of a fucking mess he had been right after STEM.    
  
Seeing everything had changed, while the space of the room seemed to be the same, the detective tried his best to ignore the voices around them as he stepped back out into the general living space of the house, wanting to know what had changed. Aside from medical equipment, a mess and rubble of hospital furniture and dust, there were two misplaced chairs in the middle of the room, all empty.    
  
The detective froze in place when transparent, blue-toned ghosts appeared on the chairs. The ghost, or well obviously memory, as it looked the same as when he had experienced Ruvik’s past in the last STEM environment,-... he was losing track of things again. He wasn’t panicking, it wasn’t like before, but he really didn’t like that they had gone completely off track. It was… hard to recognize himself, one rarely looked at themself from an outside perspective, after all, and the Sebastian in the chair was hunched over, hiding his face in his hands in sheer frustration, while the doctor, that the detective recognized all the better, kept on trying to get the same bullshit out of him. 

_ “I understand that you’ve been under considerable stress… It’s just a fever dream, a figment of your imagination.”  _ The ghostly image of the psychiatrist spoke.  _   
_

_ “It wasn’t a dream. I was inside of a killer’s mind! It was as real as you are!” _ __   
_   
_ __ “That may be, but what good is it to hang onto this version of reality? Perhaps, if we disabuse of this notion, things will go more… smoothly for you.”

Fucking finally, things silenced, and the memory ghosts disappeared. ‘Let’s just, not talk about it.’ It was really all Sebastian could think, he had been a mess before Ruvik and Leslie showed up, and he didn’t need to accept or think about any of it right then.   
  
“This is a memory, right? Like your mansion back there? Do you know how the fuck do we get out of here?”    
  
Knowing Ruvik, he would likely want to talk about the whole session, but Sebastian was not inclined to do that, he wanted out and to get back to work, to not have to think about that shit. 

  
  


**Ruvik:**

One of the clearest signs that Sebastian was stressed, came from the other man’s habit of cursing. It was not as if Ruvik needed to listen to his words to know that the other man was experiencing stress, but it was not easy to ignore the abundance of curses that escaped from Sebastian’s lips. Listening to the words surrounding the curses, however, made the events clear. The story went about how he expected it to have gone, causing the scientist to nod, confirming that he was not especially surprised by the man’s story. It was surprisingly hard to find the right words to support the man at that time, for what could he tell Sebastian that he didn’t already know? Would it comfort the man any more if he stated the obvious? It seemed to be all he had, thus, when Sebastian urged them to move on, he stopped him just a little longer by placing his hand on his arm, giving it what he hoped was a light squeeze. “I am here for you, Seb. As long as I am near, there is no need for you to question what is real.” 

They didn’t stay and speak more than that, both felt a pressing urge to move on, especially Sebastian who seemed to want to exit the house as soon as possible. Yet, this single action was only getting more and more complicated. Ruvik followed the detective’s instructions, staying back when signaled to do so. Then the door in front of them slid shut without interference from seemingly anything, bringing up memories from the world outside of Union. Sebastian tried to open the door but it was now locked, something that unsettled them both. As one, they both glanced out the closest window, confirming that Union was still there. 

The scientist didn’t enjoy the idea that something was capable of influencing Union in this manner. The priest in the church had been affected by some manner of influence, causing him to turn into a Haunted, but that had been a single, direct force. This seemed more aware, deliberately toying with them. Was it designed by someone? Who could know these things about Sebastian’s past? Mobius would waste time creating something like this to toy with their only hope of getting back the core, it would be too much of a stretch to think that they had done something like this. The man was so lost in his hypotheses that he didn’t realize that his partner was looking at him. 

As Sebastian progressed, gun in hand, into the living room once more, Ruvik heard a strange noise that he couldn’t quite place. It made him search for the source, which turned out to be a TV, displaying only black and white. It was a very oddly round TV, in contrast to the thin ones that he was used to. During his childhood and while growing into an adult, he never had a TV at home. It wasn’t until working for Mobius that he got acquainted with them altogether, making the round thing in front of them something alien to the scientist. Of course he knew what a TV was at this point, but he knew them as thinner. The static that made the room buzz was also new to him, he was just about to ask what was wrong with the device when Sebastian moved forward towards it. 

As the man did, the picture on the TV changed, showing a corridor. Ruvik shifted a little, to see what was showing on the display. The point of view moved through the green corridor, interrupted by static now and then, towards a man he immediately recognized as Sebastian. He was sitting hunched in what looked to be a wheelchair, in front of a set of red doors, with a red light blinking above said doors. A man’s voice was speaking, but it was clear that the voice was something from a past memory, as it couldn’t be recalled with clearity. 

The TV blacked out, net to him, Sebastian made a noise and stepped back, holding his head. Before Ruvik managed to ask him what was wrong, the man said the perhaps most obvious thing that he had ever heard him say. 

“That’s… me.” After a moment’s of silence Sebastian seemed to realize how obvious of a statement that commentary actually was, and how damned obvious it was that it had been Sebastian on the display. This caused the man to continue on speaking.“I mean… Did you hear that, just now? That was my session with the psychiatrist they assigned me, that happened. What the fuck is going on?”

“Yes. I can tell that those events were from the past, even if the visuals displayed could not have been.” To the next question, he didn’t have as good of an answer. “...Yes, what the fuck is going on…?” He repeated to himself.

The lights around them were flickering, it felt like the whole house was flimmering the same way the TV was, but in blue, causing Ruvik to slowly look around. Sebastian, on the other hand, was getting visibly agitated. He tried to exit through the main door but found no luck, causing him to head back towards the bedroom. The whole situation felt as if… the house was waiting for them to find or discover something that would allow them to move on. The psychopath’s world had been like that as well, and Union wasn’t exactly designed to lock people into houses so that they may never leave. There was clearly a way out of this, they seemingly only lacked the pieces to actually exit. “No. We are not stuck. There must be something that we are missing.” Ruvik stated with such certainty that it would likely have been hard for anyone to question his words.  

The deformed man turned to follow his partner, seeing how Sebastian disappeared inside the bedroom. When he teleported to said room, he saw how the detective slammed some papers onto the desk in front of him, looking more than a little unsettled. Ruvik walked over to the papers, reached out and picked them up, starting to read. 

_ ‘File 15: Psychiatric Assessment of Detective Sebastian Castellanos.’ _

He read until the part where the casefile had been ripped in half, looking back up at Seb to see what he was doing, but before he managed to ask a sudden noise made the other man flinch. Reality blurred out in an instant, and exchanged the place they were in with an all too familiar scenery of a surreal mess of hospital equipment in a decaying world. What he saw around him were remains of his STEM. Could that be what caused these things to happen? The old STEM was influencing this one, remains of his world still infecting this one, as they were awakened by Sebastian and himself. It was possible that their minds connected to the remains of what was still left, causing ‘Beacon’ to sip into Union. 

_ “We had a call… Something happening at Beacon Mental Hospital. We went in… but it wasn’t the hospital. It was… somewhere else.” _

Sebastian’s voice echoed around them, filling what seemed to be the whole house. The man next to him barked out a question, but the memory that was taking place around them was too loud for him to speak over. The agitated detective couldn’t stand still, instead moving back into the living room, where they discovered the manifestation of the memories, in the shape of two blue entities. The shapes resembled Sebastian and a man that he had never seen before, or cared about. It was painful to see the wreck of a man in the chair, to see how he was hiding his face, hunched together in a position that made it hard for Ruvik to not want to try and touch him, to comfort him. 

_ “I understand that you’ve been under considerable stress… It’s just a fever dream, a figment of your imagination.”  _ The ghostly image of the psychiatrist spoke.  _   
_

_ “It wasn’t a dream. I was inside of a killer’s mind! It was as real as you are!”  _ Sebastian, with clear frustration in his voice, retorted. Ruvik was a little surprised to hear the man call him a killer, seeing as the man knew his story, and had previously insisted that Ruvik’s crimes had been justified. He couldn’t help but think that ‘madman’ or ‘psychopath’ sounded closer to what a frustrated Sebastian might blurt out without thinking. Not that any of those descriptions would have been more true, but ‘killer’ seemed strangely… tame, all things considered.  __   
_   
_ __ “That may be, but what good is it to hang onto this version of reality? Perhaps, if we disabuse of this notion, things will go more… smoothly for you.”

The ghosts disappeared, leaving behind a rather welcome silence, one that was quickly broken by the man next to him. “This is a memory, right? Like your mansion back there? Do you know how the fuck do we get out of here?” Sebastian sounded stressed still, but a tad less panicking. 

“Yes, this is a memory.” Ruvik responded, looking up at the other man, and as he did, he had a realization. It was a memory. It was like his mansion back inside the first STEM… Back in his STEM, where his mind influenced events. This STEM was coded for Lily Castellanos, Sebastian’s daughter. That meant that they shared around 50% of their DNA, which in turn meant that this whole STEM was coded in a way that would recognize Sebastian as the core, or half a core. Sebastian’s mind had been inside STEM before, and with the trauma came expectations and manifestations. The events in this house happened because Sebastian’s mind was trying to process them, inside here, they took place and shaped the reality that was Union. It all happened due to the man’s blood connection to the core. That truly confirmed that Lily Castellanos was the core. In theory, that meant that Seb had a lot of power inside of this STEM, that meant that the man could actually shape Union to his will… But in reality, the man knew that Sebastian couldn’t do any of that. If he learned about his powers, he would not be able to wield them. It was much more likely that the knowledge would lead to paranoia, which might cause manifestations to appear. In the worst case scenario, he might accidentally summon his biggest trauman, such as the monstrous version of Laura. 

“...Yes, I think I know how to get out of here. The only way is forward. You can’t allow yourself to be lost in these memories and the past, you have to keep on moving. Take a few deep breaths, focus, and we continue on. We have to find your daughter, but you can’t run from your past. I know it is not an easy matter, but you have to let go, accept, and move forward. Do not argue with me about my own shortcomings, we have all the time in the world to discuss such matters later, outside of STEM.” He added the last words before the other man had time to get clever with him. “You know what you have to do, doing it is the actual hard part. We are both aware of that.” 

  
  


**Sebastian:**   
The fact that Ruvik seemed more than certain that they had a way out of the mess was pretty much the reassurement that Sebastian needed. While he wasn’t about to give up any time soon either way, it made it easier to stay focused.    
  
Besides, he damned well appreciated Ruvik’s straightforwardness about how they should proceed. He’d rather not have any discussions at all about about those fucking sessions he had to go through in the past; knowing his partner, Ruvik had a lot to comment on about it, and it was very good that he realised that now wasn’t the time. 

So, this really was like back in Beacon, when he had to go through the horrid process of, well, even solving stupid puzzles, to get out. Fine. If that was what was required of him, then that was it.    
  
Being in the hurry he was, the detective was about to get on the move, while Ruvik continued speaking, which made the man come to a complete halt again, and his partner received a very annoyed and sceptical look in response to the ‘running from his past’ words. He didn’t understand what the Hell the other meant by those words, he wasn’t running from anything, if anything, he felt like he was running towards the disaster that was his past. The detective had never been particularly good with processing grief, it wasn’t a secret, but in the man’s own reference, he wasn’t running at all, he simply couldn’t see it, which was usually a leading factor to the concern of the people around him, regarding his well being.    
  
Sebastian barely had a chance to open his mouth for a retort before his partner continued with the obvious fact that any witty retort would be wasted effort… fuck, fine, Ruvik was right about that, too. “Right, so we just have to figure what the fuck this place wants with us?” He could do that, he had done it before, and he would do it again. Besides, a small house was a lot easier to repeatedly search than a mansion. 

The bathroom door was still firmly shut, and so was the front door, hence, he went back to the bedroom, and found absolutely nothing, concluding that he had to go back to that backdoor and corridor. As expected, the only door open was the one at the end of the corridor, that was now withering away and breaking apart slowly, like the world in the previous STEM. Although, to his surprise, that door was blocked as well, only giving a hint into a small room looking more like a place to perform a back alley surgery than the previous storage room and garage. He really didn’t fucking like that room, it just reminded him of the unpleasant knowledge that someone had fucked him over already before he arrived at Beacon Mental Hospital, and he only had the faintest memories of medical environment, being stuck on a stretcher, only remembering faintly, a few moments of people around him, but it was the only lead he had ever gotten to how the fuck he had ended up inside STEM, it was probably when it had happened.    
  
Sebastian tried, but couldn’t make the door budge, or push away the equipment blocking the pathway for it. All they could do was return through the corridor again. At least, they hadn’t seen anything but ghosts so far, but he wouldn’t let his guard down, not when just anything could pop up at any time to attack them. 

Upon returning to the pathway between the tiny bedroom and the general living area, the detective stopped, staring at the blood dripping on the wall, painting a picture he was very certain hadn’t been there just now. Great, so they discovered something. It had the symbol of Beacon Mental Hospital on it, and above, in fresh blood, read the letters ‘NEVER FORGET,’ sloppily spelled out. He’d much rather fucking forget. “The fuck-..” he started, glancing back at Ruvik for a moment. The man had said, at least indirectly, that whatever they were standing in was Sebastian’s memory, meaning that this bullshit was supposed to be related to his mind processing-... he didn’t even want to go there. “Is that supposed to be directed to me, or what?” He sounded unimpressed, even if it was just his stress covered up in annoyance.    
  
A creaking noise to their right made the detective turn, only to find the bathroom door slowly opening, and even in the dimly lit distance, Sebastian could see that something was written on the bathroom mirror. Before he focused on the mirror, he made sure that the bathroom was, in fact, empty, and didn’t have anything else there.    
  
The writing on the mirror made the detective pause, his lips parting slightly, as confusion was written all over his face. The writing took him completely off guard, and he turned to look back at his partner, before turning to stare at the text again.    
  
‘YOU CANNOT KEEP ME HERE’   


What the Hell was that supposed to mean? It didn’t make any sense. Those had been words that belonged to Ruvik in the past, perfectly justified in Sebastian’s opinion. Who would not be cranky and adamant on the idea of getting out of that Hell, after having been through everything the scientist had, and been betrayed that badly. Both Ruvik and himself had been forced into that machine against their own will, back then, and both were equally willing to do anything to get out. Still, he had no real trauma connected to Ruvik, no real bad memories, not in comparison to everything else. Even if Ruvik would have been a damned serial killer and psychopath, he hadn’t exactly been scary in comparison to everything else inside that world; Sebastian doubted that he would have been that bothered with Ruvik’s existence even if they hadn’t gotten to know one another.    
  
“You cannot keep me here…?” Sebastian’s voice obviously betrayed how confused he was about the statement. Before he could say anything more, there was a sound of lights turning on, and he turned quickly, to find that the outside of the bathroom door had then turned into that corridor that had been displayed on the TV, the one he had witnessed just a bit ago in a dreamlike state.    
  
Well, it seemed like the surrounding knew exactly where it wanted them to go.    
  
“Do you have any idea what that message is supposed to mean? It’s not like you’re trapped anymore,” he stated out loud, as he slowly began walking through the corridor, gun in hand, ready to fire at any threat.    
  


 

  
**Ruvik:**

Whatever creator who had designed this little house-labyrinth, aware of it or not, surely felt rather trapped. The reasons for the scientist’s conclusion were due to the way the small space kept on changing, trapping them, leading them in circles and forcing them to turn back again. It was akin to the feelings he had felt when he had been stuck in the Victoriano mansion alone, the feeling of restless pacing that happened when his mind needed a break from his work. He wondered if Seb felt it too, the need to just blankly walk through one’s house, looking for something to do to keep one’s mind off the things one didn’t want to focus on at the time. He most likely did, as they were currently walking through what seemed to be the embodiment of restless pacing. 

While they walked back and forth, the place would every now and then flicker a little, but it had mostly settled on being ‘like Beacon,’ to mimic what Sebastian was most likely to refer to the place as. Everything had such a curious blue-green tone about it, it reminded him of the shows Leslie had watched on TV, where old ships had been explored underwater, with the help of advanced cameras. The interior and overall color those ships had been similar to the overall hue that their surroundings now had. 

Sebastian suddenly stopped, causing Ruvik to focus on what he had discovered. Letters were spelled out on the wall, in a rather horrendous matter, one that reminded the man of the way Leslie usually wrote. Or, when he tried to write. Sebastian looked back at him, annoyance in his eyes and voice, trying to mask the discomfort that the man felt. Ruvik looked back at the letters. “I would assume it is directed towards you. It rather looks like Leslie’s handwriting, but I do not believe he ever had the chance to tell you such a thing.” 

A creaking noise caused the detective to refocus his attention, thus they moved towards the bathroom, which had seemingly been the cause for the noise. Sebastian went to explore the bathroom itself before focusing on the mirror. Ruvik, on the other hand, focused on the things written on the mirror right away. 

‘YOU CANNOT KEEP ME HERE’

The words woke so many memories that they ended up canceling each other out, he just ended up staring at them, not even noticing that Seb was looking at him until the man spoke up. One of his clearest memories connected to the words, was during the time he was slowly losing himself to the influence of STEM. It would have been so easy to forget who he was and what he wanted, he would likely have, if he hadn’t gotten out at all. He recalled the small traces of madness, of believing he was letting pieces of himself infect others by breaking into their minds, of believing that everyone inside STEM belonged to him, as they had entered inside his mind. Yet, above all that madness was the one thing he knew that he wanted, that one fire that made him keep on: the hope of leaving. 

He blinked twice, which was enough to gather himself, and looked at Sebastian. “You cannot keep me here…?” Sebastian’s voice obviously betrayed how confused he was about the statement. Before Ruvik could answer him, there was a sound of lights turning on, causing the scientist to turn and look behind him. The living room had transformed into a corridor, the very same one which they had seen on the TV earlier. “Do you have any idea what that message is supposed to mean? It’s not like you’re trapped anymore,” Sebastian spoke as he started to walk down the corridor with the burn scarred man following him. 

Ruvik wanted to roll his eyes at that question. “No, Seb. I am not the one trapped this time.” He realized that he might need some more explaining than simply stating what was obvious. “Your mind is trying to cope with the fact that you feel trapped inside STEM, especially when it is starting to synchronize with your memories of the old STEM. Your closest connection with being trapped inside of STEM would be me. It is similar to me mentioning, for example, Thai food. For me, my strongest impression of Thai food was when we ate it together for the first time, while yours would associate the term with something different that you have a stronger memory of.” He stopped, realizing that he had trailed off and began to speak again. “ When speaking of STEM, your strongest impression of someone being trapped inside it would be in regards to me. Even if you were trapped inside STEM as well, you did not have the time to stop and process that you were. In Union, your mind is more aware that we are stuck inside of here, until we find your daughter. It is not strange that you would feel trapped, even more so when that house seems designed to make us circle around.” He made a small noise, in between a huff and a small laugh. “Perhaps me stating that the first message looked like it was from Leslie caused you to think of me, which made the latter message appear? It is not impossible, but it is a little of a stretch.” 

They continued on, reaching the end of the corridor where they found a bigger room, the one in front of the doors with the blinking light. In the wheelchair, where the Sebastian on the TV had been sitting, the detective found a small card-looking item. It looked to Ruvik like a white square with a black center. The former showed the scientist the item, explaining that it was a photographic slide. There was a slide projector in the detective’s own mindspace, explained the hispanic, so they would probably be able to look at the slide in there. The man reached out and picked the little slide up, slowly lifting it as if he was expecting something to happen. Judging by the sudden jerk his body made, and the latter act of holding his head and groaning, the item seemed to have caused some type of reaction. It seemed most likely to be some manner of memories, which flashed through his head, as it only lasted for such a short time, leaving Sebastian mostly looking annoyed and slightly pained. 

“Are you alright?” He wanted to ask what he had seen but it didn’t seem like the time and place, it could wait. 

Sebastian grunted and shook his head, more as a way of focusing than to say that he wasn’t. “I’m fine. That was… Beacon. I saw Beacon but, it’s not like we could be back there.” 

“We are not. This is still Union.” Ruvik confirmed, as the creaking noise of doors sliding open caught both their attention. As they turned towards the red light, the doors continued to open, and they saw someone sitting at the end of a corridor. 

Sebastian pulled his gun, signing for the scientist to be silent as they walked down the corridor. The other man moved first and Ruvik followed. As they were walking down the corridor, both kept their eyes on the person, who seemed to be a man, waiting for him to move or spot them. He didn’t seem to react at all, sitting limp enough to make Ruvik think that he was looking at a corpse. As they reached the beginning of the room where the man sat, Ruvik noted the very big surgical light that was aimed towards the body, it made it seemed as if this was a setup. There was simply no way to miss the man, as if he was put up on display. However, the strong light in contrast to the stranger dark green light, and mist, possibly dust, around them, it was nearly impossible to identify the man from afar, one truly had to approach the body.  

They entered the room, the detective signed for him to stay by the door, as he slowly walked up to the man in the chair. Ruvik stayed back, noting that the man seemed to be sitting in a very big puddle of blood. It looked like a trap. He would have warned the other, but he was sure that the man thought the exact same thing. 

Seb advanced slowly, hesitated and then stepped into the blood puddle. He seemed to halt for a second, then squatted down as if he was trying to see the other man’s face. There was another small pause in his movements, before the man slowly began to reach for the other man, the gun seemingly forgotten in his right hand, pointing at the floor. It seemed as if the man was so bothered by the body that he wasn’t thinking clearly. 

“Seba-” he spoke up, as to warn him that he was letting his guard down but as he spoke the first letters of his lover’s name, a hand appeared from the puddle, one with long fingers and even longer claws. Sebastian grunted, trying to pull free but more hands appeared, four of them, holding the man stuck as he twisted to try and break free. “No, Laura, wait!” Ruvik called, taking a step forward, his voice was drowned by her scream just before she pulled Sebastian down. Down into the puddle of blood. 

The world turned black, he felt as if he was standing still, but things around him moved. He had felt the same feeling when moving from places far away from each other inside his own STEM. When the darkness cleared, he found that he was standing in the house again. The first thing he was was the message ‘NEVER FORGET,’ with the Beacon symbol underneath it, written on the wall behind the TV. Next, he spotted a corpse sitting right under it, one that seemed dead enough to not try and get up and move. The third thing he noted was a red jar next to the corpse, but that was irrelevant to him, especially since he just noticed Sebastian laying on the floor in front of him. He felt almost embarrassed that he hadn’t seen him until that point. 

Ruvik was by the man’s side in a second, pushing him over to look at his face. Normally, Sebastian was too heavy for him to move, but he was laying a little on the side, and panicked adrenaline pushed his body to do something that it normally couldn’t do. Ruvik fought back the panic that threatened to overwhelm him, instead starting to check the man’s vital signs. Just turning the man around had made Sebastian groan, which was a good sign. The scientist pulled his own sleeve up and moved his bare wrist, which had recovered enough from the fire for him to be able to feel the skin on it. He pushed his wrist against the man’s mouth and nose, checking for his breath. As he felt the weak tickle of the man’s breaths on his arm, he knew that he was able to breathe still, and was alive. After twisting his arm into an uncomfortable angle, he was able to confirm that the man also had a pulse, by feeling it beat in his neck. 

Ruvik moved on to where he had seen Laura grab the man, checking his arms and legs but found no traces of blood whatsoever, not even small bruises. That was a relief, albeit a somewhat strange discovery to find him unharmed. 

Sebastian groaned again, opened his eyes and then shut them once more. He was clearly waking up, causing Ruvik to scoot back to give him some breathing space. “Sebastian, Seba… Seb. Can you hear me? You are safe now. It’s okay, try to breathe, you should remain on the floor.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \------- Facts & Headcanons ---------
> 
> The TV and Seb's past: We were 50/50 over whether the TV showing the past Seb and beacon should be just something on the TV screen or act more like memories have in The Evil Within games, hence, we settled for both. 
> 
> Ruvik and technology: Now this is kind of funny and bizarre, because Ruvik is old, and he lived a very traditional life to the age of ten, where he was locked away, and then when he got out sometime in his teenage/early adult years, he was still living a lonesome life in that mansion. Then he burnt that down and was rather willingly locked away to work for Mobius, seeing society wouldn't welcome him. Hence, he has no reference of normal semi-new technology, whereas he has only experienced older things, albeit few, and the new ones after escaping STEM. 
> 
> Half a core: Ruvik's doom in the first game originates in the fact that he coded STEM after his own DNA, and then got killed for it, and he was looking for a good match to get out, that being Leslie. It only makes sense that people sharing the core's DNA could affect STEM and partly be recognized as a core, which would not only explain Seb's Beacon trauma influencing Union, but the fact that Myra has such incredible powers instead of having turned into a Haunted/Lost when she lost grip of herself.


End file.
